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We hope all of you get to see this eclipse for yourselves out in the open. However, in case you are unable to do so, because of clouds etc, you can still enjoy the eclipse through these webcasts.

• From IUCAA, Pune
• From Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai
• From Jyotirvidya Parisanstha, Pune

A Total Lunar Eclipse is very easy to enjoy, you just have to go outside and look at it!

Find a good location beforehand, maybe a couple of days prior to 31 Jan, where you can have a clear unobstructed view of the eastern sky, down to the horizon. Make sure that there are no bright lights nearby, since the Moon will be rising when it is already eclipsed. If you are hosting a public event, you may want to ensure that there is plenty of space for people to move around safely. Once you decide on the location, get there sometime before Moon rise on the day of the eclipse. You can even note the rough location on the horizon where the Moon has risen from, the previous day. It will take some time to locate the Moon since it will be in the shadow of the Earth. You can even have a competition among the people present to see who spots it first.

Once you have located the eclipsed Moon, you are set. Just follow it as it gets higher in the sky. At 7.37 pm, it will start leaving the shadow. The part that is now out of the shadow will be much brighter than the eclipsed part. By 8.41, the entire Moon would have left the umbral shadow. Though the Moon will be covered by the penumbra till 9.38 pm, this penumbral part of the eclipse will not be as spectacular as the umbral eclipse.

If you have a small telescope or a pair of binoculars, the partially eclipsed Moon will look beautiful through it. Make sure that you have a long focal length eyepiece so that the entire disk of the Moon can be seen in the field of view.

Yes! It is absolutely okay to see the eclipse, and share the joy of the event with people you know.

We need to take precautions while seeing a solar eclipse. Any accidental viewing of the uneclipsed part of the Sun, especially through a telescope, can permanently damage the eyes. Even so, hundreds of millions of people regularly see solar eclipses safely using solar filters and other devices. There is no such danger for a lunar eclipse - after all, we can all look at the un-eclipsed full Moon without any problem!

You may hear that one should stay indoors and not eat during an eclipse, etc. These kinds of beliefs are common around the world have no basis in science. They come from an age when humans did not understand the sky and were easily frightened by eclipses. We would do well to follow the great astronomer Aryabhata (476-550 C.E.) who gave the correct explanation of eclipses as well as a method to calculate them, and did not believe in any of the myths surrounding these events. For further reading on Aryabhata, eclipses, and myths versus science, read this article

So, you can see the eclipse with your naked eyes or using a telescope and you can eat during the eclipse. In short, there are no harmful effects from seeing the eclipse on 31 Jan.

An eclipse is one of the most grand and awe-inspiring spectacles that nature has to offer us. Why would we not want to see it?

(Pic courtesy Marco Langbroek)

The Moon's orbit around the Earth is not a circle, but an ellipse. Hence, the distance to the Moon varies slightly as it goes around us, from roughly as low as 3,62,600 km (perigee) to as far as 4,05,400 km (apogee). This makes the perigee Moon around 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the apogee Moon. When the perigee, or the closest approach to us, coincides with a Full Moon, it is called a Super Moon. The next perigee is on 30 Jan, at 3.30 pm IST. Hence, the Total Lunar Eclipse the following day is being called the Super-Moon Eclipse.

For more info, look here and here.

(Pic from M2Catalyst App)

The time from one Full Moon to the next is 29.5309 days. This means that we usually get one Full Moon every month. However, 12 such periods adds up to 254.37 days, which is roughly 11 days short of a full year. Every 2.7 years, therefore, these 11 day excess adds up to one full lunar month. This will then cause two Full Moons in a single month. And this is the modern definition of a Blue Moon. In January 2018, we have a Full Moon on 1 Jan, and again on 31 Jan, the day of the eclipse, giving us a Blue Moon eclipse.

For more info, see here, here and here.

(Pic from here)

Did you know that the blue colour of the sky and the reddish rise and set of the Sun and the Moon are connected? Sunlight has all colours in it, but the molecules and dust in our atmosphere scatters the bluer light more than it does the red. Hence, the sky is blue all over. The light from the Sun and the Moon travelling though a long path in our atmosphere at rise and set time, is thus reddened.

During a Total Lunar Eclipse, the Earth blocks sunlight from reaching the Moon directly. However, the red light from the sunrises and sunsets can pass through the edges of the Earth, and can refract on to the Moon, making it red in colour. Hence the name, Blood Moon or Copper Moon.

For more info, see here and here.

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