Welcome to Keep Looking Up, the blog series written by our planetarium team, where we share fun space stories and what you might see if you keep looking up.

August is Eclipse Month

Greetings fellow sky gazers! We have two eclipses happening this August. One total solar eclipse and one partial (near total) lunar eclipse. Now for the good news/bad news. Only one will be visible from South Florida.

First, a quick refresher on eclipses: When the Moon’s orbit moves between the Earth and Sun we get a solar eclipse. There are three types of solar eclipses.

If the Moon blocks the Sun completely it is called a total eclipse.
If Moon moves in front of the Sun but is far enough away in its orbit from the Earth to not cover it completely leaving a “ring of fire”, it is called an annular eclipse. (Annular is from Latin meaning ring).
If the Moon only blocks part of the Sun, it is a partial eclipse.

Solar eclipses are never safe to look at directly with your eyes, while lunar eclipses are always safe to look at with your eyes. A lunar eclipse is when the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. There are three of these as well. The Earth has two shadows: the dark part called the Umbra and a fainter area around that called the Penumbra (Umbra from the Latin again meaning “shade” and Penumbra means “almost shade” Trivia: Umbrella means “little shade”).

When the Moon goes completely through the Umbra we have a total lunar eclipse.
When only part of the Moon goes through the Umbra it is called a partial lunar eclipse.
When the Moon only goes through the Penumbra, we get a penumbral eclipse. penumbral eclipses are very faint and easy to not notice.

August 12 – Total Solar Eclipse

Let’s get this out of the way: This is NOT visible from South Florida. This happens. You do have to be on the right spot of the Earth to see a solar eclipse of any kind. We are just a little too far South to see even a partial Solar Eclipse. Don’t worry! We will have a total solar eclipse visible in South Florida in… 2045. On August 12 too!

August 27 and 28 – Partial Lunar Eclipse

This one will be visible in South Florida. If the sky is clear, you should be able to see it. First contact with the Earth’s Umbra starts at 10:34 p.m. on August 27. Around 12:12 a.m. on August 28, the Moon will be about 93% covered by the Earth’s Umbra. Leaving a bright thin arc above a rusty, coppery part that is in the Umbra. Just like how the sky can be orangish red at sunrise/sunset and blue during the day, our atmosphere scatters light from the Sun making only the reddish orange colors to reach the Moon.