Hong Kong will witness its third total lunar eclipse in the current batch of four (known as a “tetrad”) on Saturday night, weather permitting.
Similar to the last lunar eclipse on Oct. 8, 2014, the special feature of this astronomical occurrence is that the process will have already begun before moonrise, meaning the spectacle will appear very low (and therefore large) in the sky.
The total eclipse will begin at 7:54pm and end at 8:06pm, so there’s not an awful lot of time for fannying about.
It will best observed from spots with an unobstructed view of the horizon to the east and southeast, such as on top of Tai Mo Shan (if you fancy scaling Hong Kong’s highest peak at night), the east dam of the High Island Reservoir and Shek O.
The Space Museum will also let you gawp through their telescopes for free along the middle section of the Avenue of Stars between 6:45pm and 9:45pm. Presumably though, there will be a lot of competition for the prized 12-minute slot of the actual eclipse.
And if you’re totally lame and would rather watch from a screen, a webcast will be provided.
The moon will not completely vanish but appear a dull red colour, apparently because the blue part of sunlight is scattered away by the Earth’s atmosphere – but that sounds like some sort of hippy bollocks to us.
Saturday will mark the third lunar eclipse in a tetrad of four, with the first two occurring last year. The fourth and final one is set for Sept. 28 this year, but it won’t be visible in Hong Kong.
And if you’re feeling rather complacent about how many lunar eclipses we’ve been blessed with of late, bear in mind that there won’t be another tetrad until 2032, so be interested, goddammit!
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