Penumbral lunar eclipse, 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Padjdusakova Comet
Keep your eye in the sky tonight and tomorrow morning as there will be two fascinating phenomena occurring.
There will be a penumbral lunar eclipse. The first full moon of February is called the "Snow Moon" or the "Hunger Moon" and it will pass through the edge of the Earth's shadow.The Moon will be completely shaded, but will not be the fiery red color associated with an umbral lunar eclipse. The eclipse will start at 5:32 PM EST. The Eclipse will peak at 7:43 PM EST. The event will be over at 9:55 PM EST. The first 40 minutes and the last 40 minutes of the eclipse is uneventful. Every month's full moon has a nickname that is traced back to centuries of Native American tribes.
The second event will be the passing of Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Padjdusakova Comet. The closest pass of this green comet to the Earth will be Saturday morning when it is 7.4 million miles from the Earth. If you miss Saturday, you will still be able to see it on Sunday Morning. What is unusual about this comet is the green color. This comet is orbital period is once every 5.25 years. You will have to find the constellation Hercules in the Eastern sky. You will either need a pair of binoculars of a small telescope to view the event. It will look like a fuzzy green ball with a fan tail. The green hue comes from the vaporization of diatomic carbon. This is why scientists feel that comets played an important part in the evolution of the Earth by providing a Carbon source for life and water.
To help with locating the constellation Hercules there are two great apps- Skyview or Star Walk.
Here is some history about the Hercules constellation
"Hercules constellation is located in the northern sky. It was named after Hercules, the Roman version of the Greek hero Heracles.Heracles, in turn, was often associated with the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh, and the constellation itself has a long history, dating back to Sumerian times.Hercules is the fifth largest constellation in the sky, but has no first magnitude stars. In traditional depictions, the star Ras Algethi (Alpha Herculis) represents Hercules’ head and a prominent asterism, the Keystone, marks his torso, as he stands victoriously on Draco’s head.In mythology, the constellation Hercules is usually associated with the penultimate labour of Heracles, which involved killing the dragon Ladon, who guarded the garden of the Hesperides. The dragon is represented by the constellation Draco. Hercules constellation was first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.Notable deep sky objects in Hercules include the Great Globular Cluster (Messier 13), the globular cluster Messier 92, the planetary nebulae Abell 39 and NGC 6210, the Hercules Cluster of galaxies, and the galaxy cluster Abell 2199." (Constellation GuideConstellations: A Guide to the Night Sky)
