Lunar eclipse seen in RP

A partial lunar eclipse was witnessed in the Philippines at dawn yesterday.

Cebu-based astronomer Christopher Go, a member of the Astronomical League of the Philippines, said the eclipse was also visible in Europe and all the way to Asia before and after midnight on Thursday and Friday.

"Here in the Philippines, the eclipse occurred at dawn, with 19 percent of the moon covered by the Earth’s umbra shadow," he said.

Go captured four images of the eclipse from Banilad, Cebu City using his Schmidt Cassegrain telescope and a Nikon D50 DSLR camera.

"A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon crosses the earth’s shadow.

Technically, the eclipse starts when the moon enters the outer shadow of the earth called the penumbra. During this phase, the moon will have a lighter color but no darkening is visible," Go explained.

He said the darkening phase starts when the moon enters the inner (or dark) shadow of the earth called the umbra.

Yesterday, the umbra phase started at around 2:05 a.m. and ended at about 3:37 a.m.

Last Feb. 27, the 36-year-old Go discovered that Jupiter was growing a new red spot called the Red Spot Jr. while he was observing the planet at his residence in Cebu City.

The red spot is about as wide as the Earth’s diameter and was formed from three white spots sometime between 1998 and 2000. In December 2005, the spot turned red just like the much older Great Red Spot.

The discovery was featured in the official website of the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Because of his discovery, Go was invited to become a member of the

Jupiter research team of the University of California Berkeley, which uses the Hubble Space Telescope, and the W.M. Keck Observatory to study Red Spot Jr. — Sheila Crisostomo