In Italy, those who this morning remained with their noses upwards, if they were lucky, managed to glimpse at most an elusive area of penumbra. A small perception in memory of a record partial eclipse of the moon, the longest in the last 580 years. The last so lasting partial dates back to 18 February 1440.
This morning, from 8.19 to 11.47, almost all of the lunar disk (97%) remained immersed in the shadow of the Earth. A spectacle – with the moon with red shades – visible above all in North America, Australia, South America or in various areas of the Pacific Ocean, but hardly observable from Italy, where in any case the regions further north-west have had some weakness hope to be able to notice the partial eclipse.
If the phenomenon was scarcely observable by staring at the sky, the show was still guaranteed by a live online event organized by the Virtual Telescope which offered fans the various phases of the eclipse in streaming.
As the Italian Amateur Astronomers Union had anticipated, at dawn on November 19 “the full moon will however be very low on the western horizon, close to sunset, while the sky is clearing due to the imminent sunrise” remembering however that ” in the evening no phenomenon connected to the eclipse will be seen “.
The maximum phase of the eclipse was reached around 10 am and the full moon observed is called “Miniluna” (or Microluna) to indicate a full moon close to apogee, at the maximum distance from the Earth.
Also for this reason, given the distance, the partial eclipse turned out to be so long. With our satellite moving slower, and therefore taking longer to cross the Earth’s shadow cone, what just happened was a partial eclipse that lasted almost 3 hours and 28 minutes, much longer – to give an idea – of the one that took place in May which lasted 2 hours and 53 minutes.
Finally, among the curiosities, the Italian Amateur Astronomers Union points out that “the moon appears slightly smaller: by photographing it, it will be possible to compare it with images of the” supermoons “of the past, highlighting the difference in the apparent diameter of the lunar disk. Remember that the difference between maximum and minimum of the diameter of the Moon is approximately 14% “.
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