11/07/2022 – Ephemeris – There will be a total eclipse of the Moon in the hours before sunrise tomorrow morning

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, November 7th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 54 minutes, setting at 5:23, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:30. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 7:40 tomorrow morning.

There will be a total eclipse of the Moon tomorrow morning. We in Michigan are near the eastern edge of the part of the Earth that can see the eclipse. The partial phase will begin at 4:09 am. More and more of the Moon will enter the Earth’s inner shadow, until 5:16 am, when the Moon will be completely eclipsed. We expect the Moon to have a reddish hue from sunlight leaking and bent through Earth’s atmosphere into the shadow. This total phase will last until 6:41 am, when the Moon will begin to emerge into sunlight to start the ending partial phase of the eclipse. By this time, the Moon will be getting low in the west. The Moon will set around 7:40 am, just before the end of the eclipse and a few minutes after sunrise.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Credit: NASA/GSFC, Fred Espenak. Click on the image for the full size PDF file from the NASA eclipse site.

The contact times again for Eastern Standard Time

Contact                     Time EST
U1 Partial eclipse starts...4:09 am
U2 Totality starts..........5:16 am
   Mid-eclipse..............6:00 am
U3 Totality ends............6:41 am
U4 Partial eclipse ends.....7:49 am

P1 and P4 are not noticeable, so are not listed. The penumbral shadow will be noticeable, generally for a half hour or so before U1 and again for a half hour or so after U4, if you are located far enough west of here to see the complete eclipse.

This is a not-to-scale diagram of the motion of the moon through the Earth’s shadow during a lunar eclipse. Assume we are looking down from the north, the motion of the Moon will be counterclockwise. The Moon will enter the shadow from the west or right, so the first “bite” of the shadow will be on the left side of the Moon. The penumbra is a gradually increasing shadow from the outer edge to the umbra, where the Sun is partially blocked by the Earth.

The Moon’s appearance in totality

The Moon will normally appear to have a dull reddish hue during totality, though the edge of the umbra will normally appear gray. When there is a spectacular volcanic eruption, the volcanic dust in the atmosphere can produce an especially dark eclipse. The normal red color is due to all the sunrises and sunsets occurring on the Earth during the eclipse. The atmosphere scatters out the blue component of the sunlight, giving us red sunrises and sunsets. Also, the atmosphere refracts or bends the sunlight into the Earth’s inner shadow, the umbra, at the Moon’s distance, so the totally eclipsed Moon isn’t completely dark.