Night Gazers! Be ready to hook this month end for Lunar Eclipse after 150 years

New Delhi, January 3: Night gazers! Be ready to watch the ‘Lunar Eclipse’, this month end. The first eclipse of 2018 will be a lunar one that comes at the very end of the month, on Jan. 31. The interesting part is such a sky watching event hasn't happened for last 151 years. Now that's more exciting!

 

This will be a total eclipse that involves the second full moon of the month, popularly referred to as a Blue Moon. The eclipse will take place during the middle of the night, and the Pacific Ocean will be turned toward the moon at the time.

Central and eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and most of Australia will get a fine view of this moon show in the evening sky. Heading farther west into western Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the eclipse will already be underway as the moon rises. To the east, Alaska, Hawaii and northwestern Canada will see the eclipse from start to finish. Moonset will intervene for the rest of North and Central America.

After this year, the next time that a Blue Moon passes through Earth's umbra will be on Dec. 31, 2028, and, after that, on Jan. 31, 2037. Both of these eclipses will be total. So, the upcoming eclipse on Jan. 31 will be the first total eclipse of a Blue Moon in nearly 152 years!