Total lunar eclipse occurs in July 2018

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Observation from Chelsea, Victoria, Australia at 06:07am AEST (UTC+10).
Image: Ian Fieggen.

On Friday–Saturday —depending on observer's timezone— a total lunar eclipse occurred as the Moon was in the shadow of the Earth. As normal during such an eclipse, the Moon became faint and turned completely red as bluer light was scattered by the Earth's atmosphere. Totality of 1 hour and 43 minutes was the longest in the 21st century.

People were able to observe the eclipse from Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. A volunteer named José Jiménez uploaded a photo of the incident today from Alt Empordà in Girona, Catalonia, Spain, featuring the Moon, Mars, and the milky way on the same photo.

German astronaut Alexander Gerst took photos of the Moon from the International Space Station and uploaded them to Flickr on the same day.

According to timeanddate.com, the timeline of the eclipse was as follows.

Event Time (UTC)
July 27
Start penumbral eclipse 17:14:47
Start partial eclipse 18:24:27
Start full eclipse 19:30:15
Maximum eclipse 20:21:44
End full eclipse 21:13:11
End partial eclipse 22:19:00
End penumbral eclipse 23:28:38

Mars was also visible near the Moon; coming this week, reported 9News, closer to Earth than at any time since 2003.

File:The Moon Before Eclipse in 20180727, Fuzhou 01.jpg

Sources