                        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.

                              2021 November 25

                            At the Shadow's Edge
                Image Credit & Copyright: Jean-Francois Gout

   Explanation: Shaped like a cone tapering into space, the Earth's dark
   central shadow or umbra has a circular cross-section. It's wider than
   the Moon at the distance of the Moon's orbit though. But during the
   lunar eclipse of November 18/19, part of the Moon remained just outside
   the umbral shadow. The successive pictures in this composite of 5
   images from that almost total lunar eclipse were taken over a period of
   about 1.5 hours. The series is aligned to trace part of the
   cross-section's circular arc, with the central image at maximum
   eclipse. It shows a bright, thin sliver of the lunar disk still beyond
   the shadow's curved edge. Of course, even within the shadow the Moon's
   surface is not completely dark, reflecting the reddish hues of filtered
   sunlight scattered into the shadow by Earth's atmosphere.

         Notable APOD Submissions: Lunar Eclipse of 2021 November 19
                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
                NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

