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Aug 2, 2018
Eclipse over the Gulf of Poets
Image Credit & Copyright: Paolo Lazzarotti
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Eclipse over the Gulf of Poets
Image Credit & Copyright: Paolo Lazzarotti
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
The total phase of the
July 27 lunar eclipse
lasted for an impressive 103 minutes.
That makes it the longest total lunar eclipse
of the 21st century.
The Moon passed through the center of
Earth's
shadow while
the Moon was near apogee, the most distant point in its elliptical orbit.
From start to finish, the entire duration of totality is covered
in this composite view.
A dreamlike scene, it includes a sequence of digital camera exposures made
every three minutes.
The exposures track the totally eclipsed lunar disk, accompanied on
that night by bright planet Mars, as it
climbs above the seaside village of Tellaro, Italy.
In the foreground lies the calm mediteranean Gulf of La Spezia,
known to some as the Gulf of Poets.
In the 3rd century BCE, heliocentric astronomer
Aristarchus
also tracked the duration of lunar eclipses, though without
the benefit of digital clocks and cameras.
Using geometry he
devised a way
to calculate
the Moon's distance from the eclipse duration,
in terms of the radius of planet Earth.
