Total lunar eclipse: How to watch Friday’s blood moon live online

A
total lunar eclipse seen from Thailand on Jan. 31,
2018.

Athit
Perawongmetha/Reuters

• A blood moon or total lunar eclipse
  is happening on Friday, July 27.
• At 1 hour 43 minutes of totality, the lunar eclipse will be the
  longest until the year 2123.
• People in North America, including the US, Canada, and
  Mexico, won’t be able to see the blood moon.
• But NASA, the Weather Channel, TimeAndDate.com,
  Slooh, and others will broadcast live online footage of the
  astronomical event. Here’s how to watch.

A majority of Earth is in for a special astronomical treat on
Friday night: the longest total lunar eclipse (also known as a
blood moon) in
a century.

On that night, our planet will slip in front of the sun to cast
an
orange-red shadow on the full moon. From the moon, the Earth
would appear to be surrounded by a 25,000-mile-around
ring of fire.

A
map of locations where the total lunar eclipse of July 27 and 28,
2018, will be visible.

Fred
Espenak/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Unfortunately, a big swath of the planet won’t get witness this
astronomical spectacle first-hand. The moon will be below the
horizon and entirely out of sight in the US, Canada, Mexico, and
other North American countries during the eclipse. (Cloudy
weather could also block a clear view of the night sky for those
in regions where the eclipse is visible.)

So praise be to the magic of cameras, high-powered lenses or
telescopes, and the internet — anyone with a decent web
connection can watch the blood moon from their phone or computer.

Below we’ve listed a number of ways you can watch the total lunar
eclipse live using online video streams. Some you can even play
without leaving this page.

What to look for and when

To fully enjoy a blood moon, whether in person or online, it
helps to understand the sequence of events, their timing, and their
effects.

The official start of the lunar eclipse is just before 1:15 p.m.
EDT (17:15 UT) on Friday, July 27. This is when the moon first
touches Earth’s outer shadow or penumbra. It might look like the
moon is getting a bite taken out of it.

A
diagram of the Earth, moon, and sun during a total lunar eclipse
or “blood moon.”
Shayanne Gal/Business
Insider

The penumbral shadow will grow and deepen until about 2:24 p.m.
EDT (18:24 UT). At this point, the moon will start turning
orange-red because it’s entering Earth’s central shadow or umbra.

By about 3:30 p.m. EDT (19:30 UT), the moon should look
completely colored and in “totality,” or totally inside our
planet’s umbra.

©bigstockphoto.com/alexeys
on timeanddate.com

Peak or greatest eclipse — when the moon is closest to the center
of the umbra — will happen just before 4:22 p.m. EDT (20:22 UT).
The moon will be at its darkest at that point.

From there, these phases will happen in reverse, with totality
ending 1 hour 42 minutes and 57 seconds after it started, at 5:13
p.m. EDT (21:13 UT). That’s the longest total lunar eclipse until
June 9, 2123.

Finally, at 6:19 p.m. EDT (22:19 UT), the moon will exit the
umbra; by 7:28 p.m. EDT (23:28 UT), the whole event will be over.
After that, our lunar companion will be fully outside Earth’s
shadow and look like a typical full moon.

Here’s how to watch all this live:

1. Slooh

Slooh, a company that airs live views of space, plans to
broadcast telescope views of the entire lunar eclipse from start
to finish. Their YouTube feed should go live at 1:00 p.m. EDT
(17:00 UT), which is 15 minutes before the event begins.

During their show, which will also air on Facebook Live, astronomers will likely comment
on the history and science of total lunar eclipses.

As Slooh explained in an email to Business Insider, the eclipse
will happen when the moon “is farthest from Earth and appears at
its smallest, therefore taking more time to pass through Earth’s
umbral shadow.”

2. TimeAndDate.com

An alternative way to watch most of the lunar eclipse will be
Time and Date which will start its live coverage 2:00 p.m. EDT
(18:00 UT).

The website also has useful interactive maps of the event.

3. The Virtual Telescope Project

The Virtual Telescope Project, which published some of the

first astronomical images of Elon Musk’s car flying toward Mars
orbit, will have its cameras trained on the moon during the
lunar eclipse. The webcast should kick off at 2:30 p.m. EDT
(18:30 UT).

“Our live coverage will be from a very unique place, the Roman
Forum on the Palatine Hill, from where the eclipsed moon and the
red planet will show just above the legendary Colosseum and the
Arch of Constantine,” astronomer Gianluca Masi, who runs the site
from Europe, told Business Insider in an email. “So, both the sky
and the landscape will amaze the people worldwide thanks to our
streaming, as we will share all this with them.”

4. The Weather Channel

This outlet has an app that will livestream the eclipse starting
at 4 p.m. ET, “including the best views of the lunar eclipse from
field crews in multiple countries, such as Greece, Luxembourg,
Italy and Australia,” a representative told Business Insider in
an email.

You have to download The Weather Channel’s app to watch
their footage, which should last about an hour.

Note, however that only people watching from the US (or perhaps
via a US internet service provider) will get to see this blood
moon webcast.