Lunar eclipses are supposed to be red, yet when the Moon passed through Earth's ruddy shadow on Jan. 20th, many observers witnessed a different color: turquoise blue. Heiko Ulbricht and Dirk Landrock photographed the phenomenon from Radebeul, Germany:
"The colors were wonderful--red and blue," says Ulbricht.
The source of the turquoise is ozone. Prof. Richard Keen, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Colorado explains: "During a lunar eclipse, most of the light illuminating the Moon passes through the stratosphere, and is reddened by scattering. However, light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer." This can be seen, he says, as a turquoise fringe around the red.
Blue appears during every total eclipse of the Moon. Naked-eye observers often miss it because it is fleeting, best seen only during the opening and closing minutes of totality. Binoculars and telescopes improves visibility. "We used a 14-inch Maksutov-Newton telescope," notes Ulbricht.
The blue eclipse was also seen in Argentina, Arizona, Oklahoma, Illinois, Italy, the Netherlands, and Kansas ... just to name a few.
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