Two celestial events will mark the evening of Friday, Feb. 10 unique as a lunar eclipse and a comet's voyage will unfold at night to the wee hours.
Making the eclipse special is that it will be a penumbral eclipse, thanks to a portion of Earth's shadow falling on the moon.
It will make the moon appear slightly darker than usual on Friday night, unlike during a total lunar eclipse when the moon looks reddish after being fully covered by the Earth's shadow.
"These things are very subtle," said Noah Petro, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He added that a cloudy night can make it hard to notice the event.
Experts have advocated 7:44 p.m. ET as the best time to watch the lunar eclipse, when the moon's top turns gray.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth, and moon line up and the Earth blocks the sun's light from reaching the moon. In a penumbral lunar eclipse, only the Earth's more diffuse outer shadow called the penumbra covers the moon.
Those looking up at the eclipse when it is peaking can see the dusky penumbral shading.
Best Views Of Eclipse
A better view of the lunar eclipse will be available for those in Europe, Central and South America, eastern North America, western Asia and Africa.
Those in the Midwest can view it best during sunset and moonrise. However, people in the west of the United States will get a hazy view with moon showing up in a faded look during the last hours of the night.
In Europe, Africa, and western Asia, the event takes place early on Feb. 11, with the moon high in a darkened sky.
Green Comet
Another anticipated event is the voyage of Comet 45P. But the passing of Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková will be somewhat subdued to gazers and will not be an eye-catching event.
The comet will be some 7 million miles away from Earth on Friday night and early Saturday morning. The Friday voyage marks the comet's closest journey near the Earth, even though the distance is still 30 times more than the distance of the Earth from the moon.
Being too far, binoculars will be required to see the comet. Those using telescopes can see the comet appearing as a green dot thanks to its unique chemical composition.
On Saturday morning, the comet can be viewed at 3 a.m. ET.
"It's not going to be something that you can just look up and say 'Oh wow!," commented Michael A. Disanti, a scientist at NASA Goddard.
Live Streaming
For the benefit of skygazers, the Slooh Observatory will be running streamed shows on Friday. The lunar eclipse-related broadcast will start at 5:30 p.m. EST and the comet broadcast will begin at 10:30 p.m. EST.
The voyage of Comet 45P will render an opportunity for scientists to click better pictures of the comet to examine its structure and composition, according to Geronimo Villanueva, NASA Goddard's planetary scientist.
