NASA's "Blood Moon"

[kpete]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/

[Takket]

1. i wish they wouldn't call it that

the color has nothing to do with blood and only perpetuates the supernatural nonsence that so many people shun science in favor of.

[yawnmaster]

2. I like the name. eom

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Psst....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4823716

[indivisibleman]

7. I completely agree Takket

It does help to prop up the nonsense surrounding something that is completely natural. It isn't even red at all. It is very much orange and quite beautiful. I stayed up to watch it and found it to be a wonderful sight.

[Cha]

3. Wow! thanks kpete.. here's a shot from Ennis, Texas I found on

on fb that babylonsistah had posted.. pretty cool..


You've seen the lunar eclipse up close by now, so how about the lunar eclipse over an amazing field of bluebonnets in Ennis, Texas? I stayed out til 6am this morning photographing the different phases of the eclipse over this field on Mach Road, and composited them to create this image. Let's share the heck out of this, a ton of hard work went into creating this shot Prints are available here: http://tinyurl.com/nkazyum

[neverforget]

4. That's a beautiful picture!!

[Cha]

5. That's what I'm thinking, neverforget!

[JimDandy]

9. Wow. That's a keeper.

I saw only the start of the eclipse, but didn't last long enough to see the moon in the reddish phase, so am pleased to see the fine works of others who did.

[Cha]

10. I know what you mean.. I stayed and stayed.. but it wasn't that late out here on Kaua'i..

and since I saw my first ever eclipse I'm really interested in all these other beautiful shots!

[NuclearDem]

8. What? It's a blood moon?!

Damn, I'm supposed to be meeting for the Ritual with the other atheists. Christopher Hitchens won't summon himself!

[MFM008]

11. i call it copper moon

[snot]

12. Why does it turn red, rather than some other dark color?

[Jim Lane]

13. Because the light we see has been scattered by Earth's atmosphere before reaching the Moon.

The scattered light is red because red light has the longest wavelength of the visible spectrum:

The Moon does not completely disappear as it passes through the umbra because of the refraction of sunlight by the Earth’s atmosphere into the shadow cone; if the Earth had no atmosphere, the Moon would be completely dark during an eclipse.[3] The red coloring arises because sunlight reaching the Moon must pass through a long and dense layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, where it is scattered. Shorter wavelengths are more likely to be scattered by the air molecules and the small particles, and so by the time the light has passed through the atmosphere, the longer wavelengths dominate. This resulting light we perceive as red. This is the same effect that causes sunsets and sunrises to turn the sky a reddish color; an alternative way of considering the problem is to realize that, as viewed from the Moon, the Sun would appear to be setting (or rising) behind the Earth. Such a total eclipse of the moon is sometimes referred to as a blood moon.[4]

The amount of refracted light depends on the amount of dust or clouds in the atmosphere; this also controls how much light is scattered. In general, the dustier the atmosphere, the more that other wavelengths of light will be removed (compared to red light), leaving the resulting light a deeper red color. This causes the resulting coppery-red hue of the Moon to vary from one eclipse to the next. Volcanoes are notable for expelling large quantities of dust into the atmosphere, and a large eruption shortly before an eclipse can have a large effect on the resulting color.

(from the Wikipedia article on "Lunar eclipse")

[snot]

14. Thank you! Very interesting.