By Dan Hicks

The partial eclipse of our September 17 Harvest Moon will be marginal, but is conveniently timed and will be our only lunar eclipse of the year. (Our next lunar eclipse will be an inconvenient total lunar eclipse on March 14, 2025, totality beginning at 00:26 MST.)

Although the September 17 eclipse of our Harvest Moon will ostensibly be visible across the Americas, Africa, and Europe, our local weather forecast for the evening is dismal, and Planet Earth’s maximum umbral shadow – its deep shadow – will darken a mere four per cent of Luna’s surface at 20:44 MDT, in precise astronomical parlance – a 3.87% obscuration, extending southward to Plato Crater’s northern rim; the craggy crater’s southern rim yields a sweeping lunar vista looking out upon scenic Mare Imbrium – the “sea of rains.”

The moon will be orbiting eastward at 3,960 kilometres per hour and Earth’s shadow will appear to move from the moon’s northeast to northwest edge (from an astronomical perspective – “east” being the side nearest our eastern horizon); but our planet’s rotation will cause the moon to traverse westward across our sky.

Lead image: The rising Harvest Moon silhouettes a leafy deciduous tree in Cranbrook on September 9, 2022. Dan Hicks photo

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