Two eclipses are taking place in August. Here’s where you can view them.
Here's what's trending across the USA right now:
August is when the night sky really gets interesting. The Perseids, the best meteor shower of the year, continue to grow in intensity and peak on the night of Aug. 12, and this time the moon actually cooperates: it’s new that same day, so skies will be dark enough to catch the show in full.
Adding to this, “It’s predicted to have between 50 and 100 of these shooting stars per hour,” shared Francine Jackson, staff astronomer at the Ladd Observatory at Brown University. “Many watch this one more than any other because it’s easy to lie on the grass, or on a chaise lounge, without worrying about dressing up like for an Arctic expedition.”
Meanwhile, Aug. 12 is also the date of a total solar eclipse, though not for us much in North America. The path of totality sweeps through the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, and into northern Spain — the first total solar eclipse visible from mainland Europe in 27 years. Amazingly, the last one for mainland Europe was on Aug. 11, 1999.
Notably, Unfortunately, from New England, we’ll only catch a partial eclipse, if anything at all.
As per the latest buzz, “The solar eclipse here in Southern New England will be about 14 percent, beginning about 1:02 p.m. (EDT),” Jackson shared. She cautioned that “this cannot be observed with the naked eye. You must have eye protection to view it.”
In further updates, But hang on, because we do have an eclipse of our own late in August — the deep partial lunar eclipse. On the night of Aug. 27 into early Aug. 28, 96 percent of the moon’s face will slide into Earth’s shadow enough that the moon should take on that reddish “blood moon” glow at its peak, just after midnight.
On top of that, Jackson shared it’ll almost “seem as if the moon has a ‘polar cap.’ It will begin to enter the Earth’s major shadow, the umbra, at 10:33 p.m., with the most coverage at 12:12 a.m. before the moon leaves the umbra at 1:52 a.m.”
That’s also the same night as the Sturgeon Moon, August’s full moon, which peaks at 12:18 a.m. ET. Obviously, we won’t know the weather for quite a while, but hopefully it cooperates so we get a chance to see this wonder of nature.
Source: The Boston Globe