A total lunar eclipse will be visible in the sky over Cayman in the early hours of Friday morning, 14 March.
Tiyen Miller of the Cayman Islands Astronomical Society, says, “Here in the Cayman Islands, we have some of the best viewing conditions on the planet, as the moon will be high in the sky.”
He advises people to head outside and start looking up shortly after midnight to watch the start of the lunar event.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth, moon and sun align in such a way that the Earth casts its shadow over the moon.
Miller notes that the start of the eclipse will begin, when the moon first enters Earth’s shadow or umbra, about 12:15am.
By 1:30am, the whole of the moon will be in the darkest part of Earth’s shadow and will be in full eclipse.
At that point, Miller says, the moon “will glow a reddish hue from the sunlight curving around the Earth from all the sunsets and dawns across the planet”.
Because the moon appears red during an eclipse, this is also often known as a ‘blood moon’.
The bright disc of the moon will start to reappear around 2:30am, and by 3:30, it will be back to its normal appearance.
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