LUNAR ECLIPSE
POOR VISIBILITY YVAN( i ANII OBSERVERS DISAPPOINTED Conditions were poor in Wanganui on Saturday night for the viewing of the partial eclipse of the moon. Observers at the Wanganui Observatory in Cook’s Gardens numbered about a dozen. They caught a short glimpse of the phenomena after the moon rose and the clouds parted for a brief space just as the end of the eclipse was reached. The moon rose at 6.51 p.m. but by then the eclipse was almost half over, a little more than half of the surface ot the orb being shadowed in a coppery hue. The eclipse ended at 8.18 1 p.m. Had the whole of the phenomenon been visible in Wanganui, observers would have seen .902 of the surface of the moon obscured. The period of maximum obscurity was 15 minutes before the moon rose. One of the striking features of the eclipse was the appearance of a crescent moon in the eastern sky when the sun went down The copper-hued appearance of the obscured part of the moon was caused by light from the unobscured portion being reflected on to the obscured portion from th r earth, the colour coming from dust and other impurities in the earth’s atmosphere. There will be no further eclipses this year.
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Bibliographic details
Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 256, 30 October 1939, Page 6
Word Count
214LUNAR ECLIPSE Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 256, 30 October 1939, Page 6
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