Observe the moon over a few nights and you’ll soon notice a couple of things about it. It doesn’t rise and set at the same time of day (as does the Sun) and the bright portion of its disk changes slightly from night to night; sometimes the bright fraction decreases and sometimes it increases.
Other observations you might make are that the moon looks bigger on the horizon that when overhead; you can see large dark and bright areas on its surface and smaller features as well; you can sometimes see it during the day and occasionally, it turns a coppery brown color.
There’s more to the moon than meets the eye!
Click any of the images below to see a full-size image.
Diagram created with LunarPhase Pro
The plot with big yellow dots and little orange dots between them shows the moon’s topocentric libration for the month [topocentric means as seen from your location].
The plot tends to oscillate between daily positions.
This plot is for Dublin, Ireland.
The plot that’s made up of light blue dots connected by darker blue lines shows the moon’s Geocentric libration (i.e. as it would be seen from the center of the Earth).
This is a much smoother plot since it doesn’t account for your changing position relative to the moon as each day progresses.
LunarPhase Pro will generate diagrams and data for your location.
Below are times for viewing Crescent Moons in UT for Dublin, Ireland.
Crescent data is specific for your location but adding your timezone offset from GMT to the Sunset and Moonset times will give you an idea of when the Moon is visible locally.
The amount of time you have to see a crescent and what percentage of the Moon is illuminated will be somewhat different for where you live.
LunarPhase Pro will calculate all this information specifically for your location.
The data in the screenshot below was generated by the software.
No matter what your interest in the Moon is,
this package has something to offer you. Order it today!
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Please note that the software is a 127Mb download.
Partially Visible Penumbral Lunar Eclipse On March 25th
A Penumbral eclipse of the Moon happens on Monday, March 25th (or the night of March 24th for those in North America).
The times (in UTC/GMT) in the image below are for Dublin, Ireland (the LunarPhase Pro software will give you your local times for the Penummbral eclipse).
While the eclipse occurs on the night of March 24 in the Americas, in Europe and Western Africa the eclipse happens early on March 25th.
Regions seeing, at least, some parts of the eclipse: Much of Europe, North/East Asia, Much of Australia, Much of Africa, North America, South America, Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, Antarctica.
Areas of visibility for the eclipse:
A penumbral lunar eclipse happens when the Moon moves through Earth’s faint outer shadow, the Penumbra, without entering the dark inner shadow, the Umbra.
These types of lunar eclipses are usually quite hard to spot as the Moon does not go into a deep shadow and that Moon does not not on a coppery-red hue as it does with an Umbral eclipse.
Quick fact: A full moon only happens at night – this is because at the instant of Full Moon, the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth.
Day will happen on the part of the Earth facing the Sun while night will happen on the part of the Earth facing the Moon.
And a total lunar eclipse can be seen from all of Earth that is experiencing night, while the eclipse is taking place.
There is only one other lunar eclipse this year – on September 18th.
That will be a Partial Lunar Eclipse where only the tip of the Moon’s norther limb will pass through the Umbra.
Some people will see eclipses better than others, depending on location.
Some will see it at moonrise or moonset (as is the case with the March 25 eclipse in Western Wurope and Africa), when the Moon is low in the sky.
Lunar eclipses are safe to view with the unaided eye.
Binoculars and telescopes enhance the view, but aren’t required.
If you take any photos or videos of the eclipse, send them in and I’ll feature them on this site.