Preparing for the solar eclipse

In this eclipse season we have the total eclipse on Monday, Aug. 21, and a partial lunar eclipse on the evening of Aug. 7-8 visible from Europe, Asia and Africa.

Given all that, Monday night’s partial lunar eclipse might not be a grand treat for skygazers on the same level as the Great American Eclipse two weeks from now.

There are three types of lunar eclipse: total, partial and penumbral. In a thin band from OR to SC, people will see a total eclipse, where the sun is completely hidden by the moon.

You never want to look directly at the sun without appropriate protection except during totality.

“We’re going to be looking at this event with unprecedented eyes”, said Alex Young, a solar physicist who is coordinating NASA’s education and public outreach. The rest of the moon is covered by the outer part of the Earth’s shadow, called the penumbra.

All phases of lunar eclipse will be seen over Qatar sky. This can occur only when the sun, Earth, and moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Only part of the Moon’s visible surface moves into the Earth’s shadow. That eclipse’s path of totality will cut a 70-mile wide swath from OR to SC, plunging some areas into darkness for as long as two-and-a-half minutes. It’s the first time since 1918 a solar eclipse is passing through the entire nation. It will not be safe to view the eclipse with the naked eye and could cause permanent damage if you attempt to do so. “Cows on some farms will maybe think its time to go back into the barn – you know a lot of things happen both up in space and on the ground”. “So actually for any given location on earth, eclipses are much rarer – with an average time between eclipses of about 375 yrs – although the range of intervals is big (from a few years to over a millennium)”, she said. On an interview with The Verge, Noah Petro, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center says that the Moon’s distance from Earth allows it to cover the Sun’s disc perfectly.

Penumbral eclipses are of little interest because they are hard to see.