Total Lunar Eclipse on Thursday

[Mark Robinowitz <mrobinowitz@igc.org>]

[Forwarded information]

The last time a total lunar eclipse, also a harvest moon, was in conjunction
with Saturn was Sept. 13, 1848. Saturn is about 3 degrees south of the moon
during totality.

At least for the Eastern United States, it should be an all-evening,
prime-time affair. Barring clouds, the moon rising in the east, heading
south, will enter Earth's penumbra (outer shadow) at 8:12 p.m. EDT,
according to the "Fifty-Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses," by Fred Espenak, an
astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. The partial
eclipse begins at 9:12 p.m. When the moon is completely inside Earth's umbra
(full shadow) at 10:19 p.m., the total eclipse begins. 
For more information: planets.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html.

The midpoint of the eclipse is at 10:54 p.m. "The last lunar eclipse [April]
was fairly bright," said Geoff Chester, an astronomer with the Einstein
Planetarium of the National Air & Space Museum. "So I suspect this one will
be bright as well." He explained that because of a lack of volcanic soot in
the atmosphere, we will likely see a deep, rust-colored moon.

Totality ends at 11:29 p.m., which gives photographers 70 minutes to capture
it. The second partial phase ends at 12:36 a.m., and everything is over by
1:36 a.m.

Rao points out in his Sky & Telescope article that the next conjunction of a
lunar eclipse and a bright object will be with Saturn and Regulus on Feb.
21, 2008.

--------------

"Expanding Universe"
from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life"

Remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
Revolving at a 900 miles an hour
It's orbiting at 19 miles per second so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me and all the stars that you can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour
In a galaxy they call the Milky Way, the Milky Way

Our galaxy contains a hundred million stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle 16,000 light years thick
But out by us it's just 3,000 light years wide
We're 30,000 light years from the galactic central point
We go 'round every 200 million years
And this galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
Expanding Universe

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go
At the speed of light you know
12 million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And sink your roots deep into the galaxy
Dance of life, Planet Earth
Sink your roots deep into reality
Dance your life for Planet Earth