27Jul18 Lunar Eclipse

A beautiful Summer Maltese night in the countryside with a panoramic view of the lunar eclipse, that is the full micro moon hidden in the earth’s shadow. The fact that the moon was the farthest from Earth and deeply inside the Earth’s shadow, this was the longest eclipse of the 21st century with totality lasting for a whole hour and 40 minutes. Also the bright planet underneath the moon was Mars. The first thumbnail is a night view of the sky as totality ended. One could notice that the moon was bright red. The brightness of the eclipsed moon is a very good indication of the amount of aerosols present in the atmosphere. In this case, this meant that the atmosphere was unusually clear as a very strong volcanic eruption is well due. Otherwise, the moon would have taken a very dark red hue becoming almost invisible. The local atmosphere helped a lot to make this eclipse fully visible in the Maltese Islands as a high pressure system was present over our area ensuring no clouds or dust from North Africa to hinder the view. Online sources can provide further details about the lunar eclipse itself as I made this explanation from a meteorological perspective.

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