Ahmedabad
By Shri Narottam Sahu
Gujarat Science City

This Saturday is a full moon night and it will bring the first partial lunar eclipse for the year 2015 but would be shortest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century. 

The total eclipse of the full moon on 4th April 2015 will last less than five minutes, making it the shortest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century. It’s perfect for short attention spans!

The total lunar eclipse will be visible from western North America, eastern Asia, the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.

From the world’s Eastern Hemisphere – eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia – the greatest eclipse takes place after sunset of 4th April.

In Gujarat and Ahmedabad the Lunar eclipse will begin at 2.31 pm and will be completed at 8.29 pm. The maximum eclipse will be visible at 6.59 pm. The entire duration will be 5 hours 58 minutes.

The sunset time in Ahmedabad on Saturday is 6.56 pm and the full moon will rise at 6.55 pm. So due to the sun set the moon will appear in dark red colour during the eclipse time and will give a rare celestial treat in the sky. Many people around the world called this moon as blood moon.

The most spectacular part of the eclipse will be the totality phase, when Earth’s shadow completely covers the moon and turns it an eerie red. The moon will only skirt the deepest and darkest part of Earth’s shadow, or umbra, and totality could last anywhere from nine to twelve minutes.

During a lunar eclipse, Earth comes between the moon and the sun, casting a shadow. This lineup doesn’t happen every time the moon makes its monthly trek around Earth, though, because the orbit is tilted and usually keeps the moon out of Earth’s shadow.

Total lunar eclipses, known as blood moons, are even more rare. They happen only during a full moon, and only when the sun, Earth, and moon are precisely aligned so that our planet’s shadow completely blankets the moon’s disk. This usually happens only twice a year, and can be seen from only one hemisphere of the Earth.

For thousands of years, eclipses of Earth’s lone natural satellite have garnered awe and fear. Now that science has explained the celestial mechanics at play, we can all simply enjoy the cosmic ballet.

What makes the moon turn red?

During the total phase of the eclipse, sunlight shining through the ring of Earth’s dusty atmosphere is bent, or refracted, toward the red part of the spectrum and cast onto the moon’s surface.

As a result, expect to see the lunar disk go from a dark gray color during the partial phase of the eclipse to a reddish-orange color during totality. The moon’s color during totality can vary considerably depending on the amount of dust in the Earth’s atmosphere at the time. Active volcanoes spewing tons of ash into the upper atmosphere, for instance, can trigger blood-red eclipses.

If you miss this one, the next total eclipse will appear on September 28, 2015, and it will be partially visible to Gujarat, India.

Saturday sky in Gujarat also witness the Space Station both in the morning and in the evening. In the morning the Space Station will visible from 4.44 am to 4.45 am from South East direction. In the evening it will once again visible from 7.34 pm to 7.40 pm from South West to North East direction.

-DeshGujarat