BayToday Picture Play Gallery: Lunar eclipse

It was very early this morning, 5am to be exact, when faithful BayToday reader Denver McLaren, President of McLaren Security, took out his camera and documented the lunar eclipse.

According to Wikipedia a lunar eclipse can only occur when the moon is full and only if that full Moon passes through some portion of the Earth's shadow. The phenomenon occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or so close that the Earth is in the middle.

There are three basic types of lunar eclipses:

1. Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

- The Moon passes through Earth's penumbral shadow (tend to be of interest to academics as they are subtle and difficult to observe)

2. Partial Lunar Eclipse

- A portion of the Moon passes through Earth's umbral shadow (These events are popular as they are easy to see, even with the naked eye)

3. Total Lunar Eclipse

- The entire Moon passes through Earth's umbral shadow.

NASA documented today’s eclipse (August 28, 2007) as a Total Eclipse with an Umbral Magnitude of 1.481 and a duration of 1hr 31mins.