MORE ON TOMORROW'S LUNAR ECLIPSE:
Molly has previously blogged on tomorrow's (March 3rd) lunar eclipse (see our February archives). To my complete astonishment perhaps hundreds of visitors, some of them from areas of the world where the eclipse will be either minimally visible or not visible at all, have come to this site looking for directions as to timing and even viewing possibilities. As a public service this is an expansion of the previous blog that will hopefully give a little more information. To begin with I made a mistake in the original post when copying the time of moonrise from the Time and Date site. Moonrise will actually occur at 6:11 pm- not 6:20 pm- as I originally said. I accidentally copied the time for March 4th from the table. The time for moonset is correct in the original post. I call for attention of readers from elsewhere in the world to the above site as, if you know your time zone, it will allow you to calculate the times for the events that I will describe below. I give the following events in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), Eastern Standard Time (EST) and Central Standard Time(CST) (our time zone here in Winnipeg).
Moon enters penumbra: 20:18 GMT/15:18 EST (3:18pm)/14:18 CST(2:18 pm)
Moon enters umbra: 21:30 GMT/16:30 EST(4:30pm)/15:30 CST(3:30 pm)
Totality begins: 22:40 GMT/17:40 EST(5:40 pm)/16:40 CST (4:40 pm)
Mid-totality: 23:21 GMT/18:21 EST (6:21 pm)/17:21 CST(5:21 pm)
Totality ends: 23:58 GMT/ 18:58 EST(6:58 pm)/ 17:58 CST(5:58 pm)
Moon leaves umbra: 1:11 (March 4th) GMT/ 20:11 (8:11 pm)EST/19:11(7:11pm)CST
Moon leaves penumbra: 2:24 GMT(March 4th)/ 21:24 (9:24pm) EST/20:24 (8:24pm) CST
As you can see, if moonrise is 6:11 pm here in Winnipeg the eclipse will already have passed totality, and all we will see is the fading of the eclipse. The event in august will be much more visible here. People further to the west such as those in Alberta and the west coast will see even less than we do, and people in East Asia will basically see nothing at all. The best viewing will be in the Middle East and Europe, but people in Newfoundland will be able to catch the eclipse at least from the beginning of totality.
More eclipse factoids later.
Molly