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Lunar Eclipse

June 26, 2010 by · Comments Off on Lunar Eclipse 

Lunar EclipseLunar Eclipse:The eclipse, which will be a bit more than half the diameter of the moon darkened by the shadow of the Earth, was launched at GMT 1017 (3:17 a.m. PDT).

Unfortunately for people in the UK, the partial eclipse will not be visible from the United Kingdom or Europe.

But in many parts of the U.S. and Canada, eclipsing the moon will appear magnified as a result of a phenomenon known as the “Moon Illusion.

This occurs when the moon is near the horizon and the brain is somehow fooled into the perception of the moon as larger than when it is higher in the sky.

Low-hanging moons often appear abnormally large when viewed through trees, the differences between buildings and other subjects in the foreground.

Measurements with cameras, however, have shown that a low moon in the sky is no different in size from any other position in the sky and so the phenomenon is due to a trick in the brain.

NASA said the effect is especially strong in western and central U.S. and Canada, where the moon was setting as the eclipse reached its peak – when 54% of the Moon is dark.

Because the Moon, the Sun and Earth are not fully aligned, the eclipse was not completely dark of the moon.

Observers in India, Japan and parts of East Asia will also experience the phenomenon.

Dr. Tony Phillips, writing in the direction of NASA’s Science News, said: “A partial lunar eclipse is a beautiful thing by itself.

“You almost feel sorry for people living on the islands of South Pacific dream. There, the eclipse takes place directly overhead, high in the midnight sky where the moon illusion does not work.”

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