Eclipse Question

I was fortunate to see this evening's lunar eclipse. I noticed, when it
was 3/4 dark that I could see a dim orange glow that was in the shadow region.
I could make out the rim of the darkened disk. What is this? Where did that
glow come from?

TIA!

In article , velovich03
@aol.com says...
I was fortunate to see this evening's lunar eclipse. I noticed, when it
was 3/4 dark that I could see a dim orange glow that was in the shadow region.
I could make out the rim of the darkened disk. What is this? Where did that
glow come from?

Spooky isn't it! What you were seeing was the glow from the sunsets and
sunrises, all of them, occurring around the entire planet Earth at that
moment.

Think about it geometrically. For the Earth's shadow to eclipse the
moon, from the perspective of someone on the moon, the sun is moving
behind the earth creating a solar eclipse. As the solar eclipse goes to
totality the observer on the moon would see an orange ring around the
entire Earth caused by sun light passing through our think atmosphere.

Sad that no human has ever actually seen that.

Marc

In article ,
Velovich03 wrote:
I was fortunate to see this evening's lunar eclipse. I noticed, when it
was 3/4 dark that I could see a dim orange glow that was in the shadow region.
I could make out the rim of the darkened disk. What is this? Where did that
glow come from?

If you were on the Moon during totality, you'd see Earth not as a black
disk, but as a black disk with a red ring around it. Some sunlight,
mostly the longer (redder) wavelengths, reaches the Moon by scattering in
the atmosphere around the rim of Earth. So the Moon is still faintly
illuminated with reddish light even during total eclipse.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

(Velovich03) writes:

I was fortunate to see this evening's lunar eclipse. I noticed, when it
was 3/4 dark that I could see a dim orange glow that was in the shadow
region. I could make out the rim of the darkened disk. What is this?
Where did that glow come from?

It is the light of the Sun, filtered and refracted through Earth's atmosphere.
If you were on the Moon looking back toward earth, during an eclipse, you would
see the Earth's atmosphere as a ring of "sunset red," running all the way around
the rim of the Earth --- and that is exactly what it is: The light of the Sun,
"setting" (or rising) behind every point along the rim of the Earth.


-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

(Gordon D. Pusch) wrote

(Velovich03) writes:

I was fortunate to see this evening's lunar eclipse. I noticed, when it
was 3/4 dark that I could see a dim orange glow that was in the shadow
region. I could make out the rim of the darkened disk. What is this?
Where did that glow come from?

It is the light of the Sun, filtered and refracted through Earth's
atmosphere.


As said by previous posters. It's also not unique to eclipse
conditions, but is often seen in the new/old moon, just a sliver
illuminated but the "dark" part of the disk seen glowing faintly
reddish.

The English expression I remember is "new/old moon in the old/new
moon's arms." Doubtless there are other phrases in other languages
that describe this. If nothing else, one would think that moon-
centric religions would have made much of the bloody illumination
that sometimes appears around the time of death and rebirth.

BTW, I suspect, but don't know for sure, that clouds on the limb
of the earth play a role in how strong the glow is, may add to the
visual effects.

Thanks to all that answered my question. I'd never seen that glow befoe and it
especially startling seeing it during an eclipse.

Thanks again!