Weather News by John Hammond

   15/05/2003

Moongazers are in for an anxious night.

Around the world, heads will be tilted skywards in the hope of seeing a total lunar eclipse, but it looks like the weather might spoil the fun for some of us.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and Moon are almost exactly aligned, with the Earth in the middle. For an eclipse to occur, the Moon must pass through the shadow cast by the Earth. The Moon normally does not disappear, but remains faintly visible because a portion of light from the Sun is refracted and scattered by the Earth’s atmosphere onto the surface of the Moon. The Moon can take on a variety of hues - from a reddy orange to a dark brown, depending on how much dust is suspended in the atmosphere.

The eclipse could be visible from much of Europe, Africa, North and South America, and will be best viewed with binoculars or a wide-field telescope.

The Moon will be low in the southwest of the sky as the partial eclipse begins around 3am, and will eventually set soon after 5am. Within that period, the total eclipse lasts just less than an hour.

Because the Moon sets while the eclipse is still in progress, we may have the chance to see the ‘selenelion’, which is the simultaneous appearance of the setting eclipsed Moon and the rising Sun.

Unfortunately the weather might throw a spanner in the celestial works.
Thickening cloud will provide a wet blanket of disappointment for astronomers in Northern Ireland, Wales and some other western parts of the country.
However further east the cloud will be progressively thinner - indeed it looks like staying clear across easternmost parts of England and Scotland.

If you don’t mange to see this eclipse there’s another one coming on the 9th November, and another date for the diary is the 31st May, when there will be a partial solar eclipse.
Let’s hope the weather behaves itself then.

Weather News from the last five days:
14/05/2003
13/05/2003
12/05/2003
11/05/2003
10/05/2003

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