BATON ROUGE — A rare astronomical event is happening across the country early Tuesday morning, and we could get a glimpse of it here in the Bayou State. A Selenelion, a special lunar eclipse, will happen at sunrise on March 3.
The special lunar eclipse happens when the Sun and the eclipsed Moon can be seen in the sky at the same time. “The Earth is dead center between the Moon and the Sun. But the atmosphere bends the light,” State Climatologist Jay Grymes said. “Kind of like when you look in the water and see a fish, where that fish appears isn’t really exactly in that same spot. So that’s what the atmosphere does. It bends both the Sun and the Moon, and that’s going to make them appear above the horizon, even though at least one of them has to be below the horizon to get a full eclipse.”
“We’re lucky that the atmosphere is there to set up this rare event, of both the Sun and the Moon visually being above the horizon,” he said.
It isn’t often that an eclipse like this happens. “Lunar eclipses are relatively common, but lunar eclipses that occur precisely at the time that we’re at sunrise are rare indeed,” Grymes said. “What’s going to be unique is that you’re going to have the opportunity to see both the sun and the moon above the horizon with a full sun and a full blood moon. It’s a rare event.”
A different hue
The atmosphere is also going to play a role in changing the color of the moon during the eclipse. “The sun will look like a normal sunrise, but the moon will be full,” Grymes said. “So you’ll see the full moon, but it’ll have a kind of reddish or copper tint to it.”
“Think of the Earth as a marble, and then think of the atmosphere as a very thin veneer around the Earth,” he explained. “The sunlight comes into the atmosphere, and the atmosphere basically takes the blues out of the picture. That’s why sometimes during sunrises, or sunsets, the sun starts to look orange, because the of the light coming through.” The thickness of the atmosphere and placement of the sun can change the wavelengths, making the sun and surrounding sky appear to be different colors.
“The moon doesn’t give off light, it reflects light, so it’s going to reflect whatever light is hitting it,” Grymes continued. “The reason the moon is white is because it’s reflecting all wavelengths. If we take out the blues and the greens, we’re only left with the reds, and that’s what the moon is reflecting.”
Viewing the eclipse
If you want a chance to see the phenomenon, you’ll have to be outside by sunrise. “The timing of this is right at sunrise, because you have to catch it right at the point where the sun is coming up and just before the moon is setting,” Grymes said. The total eclipse is expected to start at 5:04 a.m. and end at approximately 6:02 a.m. on March 3.
You don’t need any special equipment or even binoculars to view the eclipse, but Gyrmes warns there could be an actual cloud hanging over the main event. “I’m fearful that across a good bit of South Louisiana, that clouds and fog might obscure our ability to see,” he said. “The chances of fog are much greater for the southern parishes than the northern ones. They might get to see it in Shreveport, but we might get cheated down here in Baton Rouge.”
Grymes said he’s planning to head outside Tuesday morning to see if he can see anything, but said if you wake up and it’s foggy, you might want to go back to bed. “It could be a complicating factor,” he said. “If we’re having fog, you might want to go online to see it, because somebody’s going to have it online.”
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