Set your alarms – there is set to be an astronomical event in the dark of the night.
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On Tuesday morning, Australia will be treated to a partial lunar eclipse.
Launceston astronomer Martin George said, weather permitting, the event in Tasmania would be visible to the naked eye.
“It will be quite spectacular to look at, and it will be very spectacular to look at in binoculars or telescopes, too,” Mr George said.
“It’s very fun to watch.”
Mr George explained the event occurs when the moon passes into the earth’s shadow, in space.
“Only sometimes does the moon get exactly behind the shadow, that’s a total lunar eclipse,” he said.
“The moon sometimes passes just below or above the shadow, so part of the moon remains bathed in sunlight.
“When you have that sort of eclipse, it looks like a bite has been taken out of the moon, like a biscuit.”
Mr George said the event would begin at 3.22am, when the Earth’s shadow would begin to impact on the moon.
At 4.21am, the partial eclipse will be at its peak, with 25 per cent of the moon covered.
From then, it will start to pass, and finish at 5.19am.
Mr George said it was important to note that lunar eclipses – full and partial – were completely safe to watch, unlike their fellow solar eclipse.
The next lunar eclipse for Tasmania will be on January 31 next year, and will be a total eclipse, Mr George said.
“We had three total eclipses in a row up to 2015. They’re sometimes called a blood moon,” he said.
“This is because the moon is bathed in a red light.
“While the Earth’s shadow blocks out the sunlight, some light still passes through.
“The light that passes through Earth’s atmosphere, which contains more red light than blue.”
Other notable events on the upcoming astronomy calendar include a total lunar eclipse on August 22, which will pass right over the United States.
It is not uncommon, Mr George said, for a solar eclipse to follow a lunar one, or vice-versa.
“It will be one of the most widely observed total eclipses of the sun, ever,” Mr George said.
“It will last for only a couple of minutes, and we won’t see any of it in Australia.”
Mr George said Tasmanians could instead look forward to the Geminids meteor shower in December.
