Blood Moon: why did she become like this?

Usually, the Moon takes on a reddish hue during an Eclipse, but yesterday a careful Amateur astronomers witnessed a very beautiful phenomenon: the disc of the moon was turquoise-blue.

Heiko Ulbricht and Dirk Landrock took this photo from the city of Radebeul, Germany:

"The colors were brilliant — red and blue," writes Ulbricht.

The source of the turquoise is ozone. Professor Richard Keane, a scientist from the University of Colorado explains: "During a lunar Eclipse most of the light illuminating the moon passes through the stratosphere and blushes in the scattering. However, the light passing through the upper stratosphere penetrates the ozone layer, which absorbs red light and actually makes the passing light ray bluer". It looks like a turquoise trim around the red.

The blue color appears at each full Eclipse of the moon. Observers without special equipment often don't notice it because it appears at the moment, it can be best seen only in the first and last minutes of totality. Binoculars and a telescope to improve the visibility.

"We used a 14-inch telescope Maksutov — Newton," — said Ulbricht.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»