7.1 day old moon
47.3 percent lit
January 12, 2019
By Tom Palmer
The moon (click here) will turn red next Sunday night as the earth’s shadow moves between the moon and the sun.
As most of you know, this is called a total lunar eclipse.
Members of the Imperial Polk Astronomical Society will present a program beginning at 7 p.m. at Florida Southern College’s Annie Pfeiffer Chapel in Lakeland. The event is free and open to the public.
Local astronomers will discuss the eclipse and answer questions.
They will set up telescopes on the college grounds to view the eclipse, which will start at 9:36 p.m. The viewing will occur during the entire eclipse, which will end at 2:48 a.m. Monday.
If the sky is clear, the eclipse should be visible everywhere in Polk County.
Total lunar eclipses happen so often in a normal person’s life that many people will probably stay indoors for the event.
This was not always so....
