Eyes on the skies for lunar eclipse

Astronomers and skywatchers across North America were up early this morning to view a lunar eclipse.

As earth’s shadow covered the full moon, it took on a reddish glow — a so-called blood moon. Graduate astronomy students at McMaster University in Hamilton had some powerful telescopes pointed at the sky to catch the show.

Kazimierz Sliwa: “What’s going to happen is the moon will actually enter the earth’s shadow, and once it’s right behind the earth, the light from the sun will actually go through our earth’s atmosphere and create this red glow on the surface of the moon.”

Tara Parkin: “We’re hoping to track it with our telescope as part of sidewalk astronomy, which is a group of graudate students and post-docs that come out weekly and just set up the department telescopes and allow the public to come and view. Thankfully the weather cleared up for us.”

The total eclipse lasted about an hour until the sun rose. There will be two total lunar eclipses next year, on April 4th and September 28th.