The Moon and other stories

15th June 2011, an awesome day (or night) for astronomers. And also for those people who are interested in astronomy. An event has taken place which happens quite seldom, the so called "Lunar eclipse".
Unfortunately there were many clouds in the nightsky of Europe, nevertheless most of us could take a glance on this supernatural event.

To understand what happened look at this image:


When the moon finds himself in this "umbra", partially or even the whole moon, we talk about a lunar eclipse. The maximum time the moon can stay in this umbra is 106 minutes, so you have to hurry up if you want to spectate it =)

Yesterday the moon looked like this. As you can see it is a total lunar eclipse:


Why isn't the moon black, you can clearly notice a warm red tone? Well, this is hard to explain (especially in English) but I try it anyways.
As you know our Earth is surrounded by an atmosphere which protects us and assures us the "cage" which keeps our oxygen.
The reason why the moon is still coloured is the refraction of our atmosphere.
Red light is a long wavelenght. If there is a lot of dust in our atmosphere, clouds, whatsoever, shorter wavelenght get scattered by this tiny molecules, long wavelenght doesn't (atl east not as much as shorter ones). Because of the combination of the refraction and this "filtration" the moon appears in a red/orange tone.


The sun ecplise is something different.


If you look at this image you can see how the Moon is passing between the Sun and the Earth. There is also existing a total Sun Eclpise and a Partial Sun Ecplise. Call it God's will but the Sun's and Moon's diameter appear similar to us, but don't get tricked by this impression (will talk about that later).

Because the Sun is so much bigger than the Moon a total Sun Eclipse can be seen on a maybe 100 km big area on the Earth, that is why it is very seldom and a rare happening for the people on an area.
The last total Sun Eclipse for Central Europe was on the 11th August 1999 and it was great


Well, to let you have an impression of the difference of sizes look at this:

And now say that we would be important in this world =)

Look at this image and imagine this image would be 1 cm² of your screen, the Space Telescope "Hubble" concentrated on this "black and boring spot" and foccused it for nearly 3 months.
Look what hubble discovered:

Every dot is an own galaxy, every pixel on your screen is unbelievable bigger than we are.

I think I will continue this topic later, for now it is enough. But don't feel scared if you look into the night sky. We might be tiny, smaller than dust, but we "are" and that is what counts. And isn't it also beautiful, so beauitful and fascinating that you can't express it in words?

Ooh! I can see my house in the VY Canis Majoris. It's a little bit center-west. =)

Anyways, nice topic dude!
And excuse me! I am important in this world.
No Adam, no laugh :DDD

Haha, I kid, I kid
How do you know all of this?

Adam Shootyperson wrote:
How do you know all of this?

Physics


Nice topic Rumo btw! Too bad that I wasn't able to see the moon yesterday

Can you see my house too, DoF?

I really like this topic Rumo, well written - I definitely learned 1 or 2 things
Adam, I see your house: it's in UrAnus

I hope to be able to watch a total sun eclipse
-Good job Rumo !

I saw a total sun eclipse, twice!

It's quite amazing, won't talk too long about it :p