Blood Moon Rising
A deep partial lunar eclipse gave McLean County residents an uncommon view of the Moon on Thursday night, Aug. 27, turning most of the lunar surface a copperred color as it rose over central North Dakota. The event was visible across the region beginning shortly after moonrise and continued into early Friday morning.
The eclipse reached its maximum at 11:12 p.m., when about 96% of the Moon was covered by Earth’s umbral shadow, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory and eclipse tracking models from Time and Date AS.
Only a narrow segment of the lunar disk remained in direct sunlight. The remainder was illuminated by sunlight that had passed through Earth’s atmosphere, which scatters shorter wavelengths and bends red and orange light toward the Moon.
That process produces the reddish appearance commonly referred to as a “blood moon.”