On August 16, Luna will pass through Earth’s shadow to bring us this year’s final lunar eclipse. Fortunately, Slooh’s Teide observatory is well-placed to observe much of the event, including the moment of greatest eclipse.
Saturday’s event is a partial eclipse, lasting just over three hours. With greatest eclipse occurring twenty-five minutes after the observatory opens, Slooh members will be able to witness three of the five contact moments of the eclipse. These include the last few moments of the first penumbral and all of the umbral and final penumbral phases.
Just as we’ve done with past lunar eclipses, the Slooh telescopes will target the moon to give members a close-up, real-time look at an eclipse as it occurs. We’ll also feature music and live commentary on SloohRadio throughout the event. Members can snap images of the evolving eclipse as various lunar craters slip through Earth’s shadow, while Slooh SkyGuides describe the interaction between our planet and its only moon.
This is an early evening event for the Teide location, beginning just after the observatory opens. Lunar missions have been scheduled, by Team Slooh and members, all throughout the eclipse, from 20:45 UTC through 23:50 UTC. Actual moon mission times will be noted to this Saturday’s Teide 1 Member Channel schedule on the Slooh Launchpad. And, of course, the event can be viewed and images snapped through the Member Channel on the Mission Interface.
Slooh SkyGuide Marleen Bryan compiled several of her Slooh images from March 2007’s partial lunar eclipse to create the following video, offering a preview of what we can expect to see with this Saturday’s event.
NOTE: SloohRadio can be accessed from the Mission Interface or through the SloohRadio link via your computer’s media player. The SloohRadio link works only during live airtimes.
