ORLANDO, Fla. – It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a supermoon eclipse!
A lunar eclipse, which was only partial in Florida, provided a spectacular sight Wednesday morning.
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The event began before 6 a.m., with the supermoon being eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow at 6:30 a.m. A moon is considered super when it’s within 90% of perigee, which is how there can be multiple supermoons in a year.
The eclipse was the best lunar eclipse in the Americas in more than two years. For the western U.S., it was a total eclipse, meaning the moon was completely entrenched in the Earth’s shadow as Earth passed between the sun and moon.
“Hawaii has the best seat in the house and then short of that will be California and the Pacific Northwest,” said NASA’s Noah Petro, project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. New Zealand and Australia also will have prime viewing.
In Central Florida, it was a partial -- but still cool -- eclipse.
“It’ll be a very dramatic sight because the moon will be setting for us while it’s still partially eclipsed,” said Dr. Yan Fernandez, a professor with the Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida. “We won’t see totality, but having the moon hanging above the horizon with a bite taken out of it is pretty neat to see.”
Unlike a solar eclipse, there’s no harm in looking at an eclipsed moon.