A pink moon was captured by Houston’s Brian Cudnik during November 7, 2023, total lunar eclipses. Credit: Brian Cudnik
All the lunar eclipses-that is a penumbral, partial or total-to-you point of view, offer stimulating opinions on the shadow of the earth. Often, the lunar eclipses offer peculiar color effects, with the shadow moon that appears reddish due to the state of the terrestrial atmosphere. But on March 14, 2025, total lunar eclipse, it guarantees almost further optical phenomena of a different type, some of which could distort their perception of reality, even if momentarily.
Let’s start with the effects of color. For example, take the peculiar pink moon that Houston’s Brian Cudnik observed during the total lunar eclipse of 7/8 November 2022 Of his image, he writes, “this … approaches well to what I have seen through the eyepiece – a pinkish nuance to the eclipse”.
Cudnik noticed that the coloring began about 15 minutes before totality and lasted up to almost the third Umbrian contact. However, through a 20 × 80 binoculars and with the eyes without help, the totality appeared more orange. The specific shades of rose can be made by mixing red/orange and white, therefore the apparent visual discrepancy between the telescopic view and the binocular view/naked eye can simply be due to the mixing of the color and the size of the image. If you reduce the telescopic image of Cudnik of the Rosa Moon looking at it from afar, the moon suddenly becomes more orange.
But the morphing aspect of the moon is not only limited to color changes. Another reader, Joe Bauman of Salt Lake City, wrote to say that during May 26, 2021, total lunar eclipses, observed the illusoric lunar channels, a phenomenon that was improved by clouds on the eclipsed moon.
Bauman’s observation recalls an extraordinary visible visual effect during lunar eclipses. During the deep penumbral and Umbrian phases, the front edge of the Earth’s shadow may not appear curved but highly irregular. Lunar shapes may appear magnificently large or strangely detached. Some are small and irregular, others long and thin. It is a visual illusion created by various optical effects while the curved shadow of the earth interacts with the characteristics of the dark mare on the moon.
While we know intellectually that the edge of the shadow of the earth is curved, any type of irregularities can appear only under certain conditions, such as the moon that enters the lunar disc at the entrance and depending on the intensity of the shadow (light or dark) and visual perception. For example, on 17/18 September 2024, the partial lunar eclipse offered stunning visual illusions and form effects. First of all, while the shadow of the earth entered the northern lunar limb, the tip of the curved edge bleed in the long shape of sea frigoris, making the shadow suddenly appear as if it had a mustache. The shadow then slipped into the northern seaside seaside traits, making shadows appear like a maple leaf. At that time, a pronounced redness also appeared in the sea Imbrium. This could be due to the color of the Earth’s shadow, which should have become red.
However, I found it curious. It would be expected that the reddish coloring of the earth’s shadow be more pronounced on the bright lunar plateaus. But the brown-red tone I saw was like an island of color in the northern mare imbium, which seemed more important to just south of the Plato crater. I suspect that the reddish shade of the Earth’s shadow in some way improved the soft and thin reddish tone of this horse-rich riding basalt section in the advanced-nine phase of the mission of Chang’e 5 lunar sampler of China landed.
After the maximum eclipse (only 8 percent), the shadow shade has slipped east on Lacus mortis and parts of Lacus Somniiorum, creating more irregularities before leaving the high -east of the seafood east and making the last vestigia of the shadow of shade like a gymnastic with a long tail appear.
Now I am interested in learning what you see during the total eclipse of this month, when the shadow shade will pour from the east and pass through all the lunar mare. As always, let me know what you see or do not see in sjomeara31@gmail.com.
