Ticker for January 20, 2000

                
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January 20, 2000   January 20, 2000   January 20, 2000   January 20, 2000


Total Eclipse of the Moon Tonight!

We all know that inside every professional meteorologist beats the
heart of an amateur (or maybe more, in your case) astronomer.  So,
here's the low down on tonight's lunar eclipse, in the words of OSU
ag and fire meteorologist and astronomy fan (and Ticker reader!)
Dr. J.D. Carlson:

It's very interesting to watch the earth's shadow
progressively cover/uncover the moon.  During totality,
I've seen the color of the moon range from very dark
(almost invisible) to dark red to bright red-orange.
A lot depends on atmospheric conditions.

As an added attraction, the "Beehive" star cluster will
appear to the lower left of the eclipsed moon as a faint
smudge of light.  Binoculars will show the star cluster
as well as give fine views of the eclipsed moon.

Dr. Carlson directs the production of several Mesonet products that
are designed for ag and fire-weather applications.  They can be found at
http://agweather.mesonet.org/agwx.html

Because tonight's action is a lunar eclipse, which is caused by the moon
passing through the earth's "shadow", we all get to watch it happen at
the same time, regardless of our location.

Here's tonight's schedule:

8:02 pm - Moon enters the penumbra (the earth's "outer shadow")
9:01 pm - Moon enters the umbra (the earth's "total shadow")
10:04 pm - Moon enters totality (full disk within umbra)
10:43 pm - Deepest point of eclipse
11:22 pm - Moon exits totality
12:25 am - Moon exits umbra
1:24 am - Moon exits penumbra

Have fun, and keep the clouds away!