The most anticipated and talked about total lunar eclipse was finally visible in the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, Western US, Western Russia and Eastern Asia. The total eclipse was a short on on Saturday; nonetheless, it was dazzling!
An Unusually Short Total Lunar Eclipse
Early risers in those territories across Canada and US caught a glimpse of this exquisite eclipse before dawn on Saturday. The crux or the moment when the entire moon was holistically obscured by the shadow of Earth lasted for a short duration of time – four minutes and 43 seconds.
Though it has been a short holistic lunar eclipse, Mitzi Adams – an astronomer based at NASA stated that the shortest one in the historical records lasted for a minute and 42 seconds. The sky-gazers complained that clouds fluttering all around prevented people from witnessing this show that lasted a totality of three hours and a half.
People Shared Their Emotions And Expressions On Social Media
People hailing from New Zealand, east Australia and Japan viewed this exquisite eclipse during the night time, posting quite a large number of photos on social media sites like Twitter.
NASA reported that during this eclipse on Saturday, the moon appeared reddish owing to sunlight that seeped through the atmosphere of our Earth, thus filtering out the blue light. This effect looked eerie and thus owing to this tongue-in-check display, a nickname was coined as ‘blood moon’.
Weather Acted As Spoilsport
The main disappointment is various parts of the world like Brisbane in Australia was the weather, which acted as a spoilsport. This can be comprehended from the myriad of tweets that the Australians had posted on Twitter, expressing annoyance and disappointment on missing out on this spectacle.
Third One Of Tetrad
Longer eclipses occur when moon passes through the shadow of the earth. However, this one was unusually brief. This total lunar eclipse is considered as the third one in a series of four (tetrad), that were to happen in a row. The first of this tetrad was on April 15, 2014, the second one during September 2014. As per NASA’s estimates, the final one might be on September 28, 2015.