Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2020 January 18

                        An Almost Eclipse of the Moon
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Gyorgy Soponyai

   Explanation: This composited series of images follows the Moon on
   January 10, the first Full Moon of 2020, in Hungarian skies. The lunar
   disk is in mid-eclipse at the center of the sequence though. It looks
   only slightly darker there as it passes through the light outer shadow
   or penumbra of planet Earth. In fact during this penumbral lunar
   eclipse the Moon almost crossed into the northern edge of Earth's dark
   central shadow or umbra. Subtle and hard to see, this penumbral lunar
   eclipse was the first of four lunar eclipses in 2020, all of which will
   be penumbral lunar eclipses.

                    Tomorrow's picture: cosmic crustacean
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