If you were watching the skies this October, you would have witnessed both a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse.
On October 23, between 5:39pm and 6:24pm EDT the sun appeared crescent shaped in most of North America. This was due to a partial solar eclipse, a phenomenon that occurs when the moon comes in between the Earth and the sun causing the moon’s penumbra (partial shadow) to temporarily pass over the Earth.
Just two weeks before, on October 8 there was also a lunar eclipse. From Waterloo, the eclipse occurred between 4:17am and 7:22am, though it was also visible in much of North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe. At the height of the eclipse – around 6:25am – the moon turned red, a result of the sun’s light getting filtered through Earth’s atmosphere before reaching the moon. Lunar eclipses only occur when the Earth is directly between the moon and the sun.
These were the last 2 eclipses out of 4 eclipses that happened in 2014. Every year there are at least 4 eclipses and at most 7, and a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse always occur within approximately two weeks of each other. Uniquely, this time both of them could be seen from across Canada and the US. The next partial solar eclipse visible from most of North America won’t be until 2023. Canadians, however, will be able to see the total solar eclipse coming up on August 21st, 2017. Your next chance to see a total lunar eclipse is next year – on September 28th, 2015. If you missed either eclipse and want to see a recording, slooh.com both live streams and makes recordings of eclipses and other celestial events.
Another way to see the stars is through the telescope in the Gustav-Bakos Observatory – on the roof of the physics building. Approximately once a month, it opens for free public tours; the next one is November 5. The tours consist of a 30 minute talk about general astronomy given by a graduate student at the University of Waterloo followed by a chance to look through the telescope, weather permitting. Generally it’s not too crowded, and if you’ve already been to the talk you can just come for the telescope, so it’s a great opportunity to either way. Even if it is too cloudy, you can still come to see the views from the roof of the physics building and the observatory itself.
Leave a Reply