During the eclipse, the Moon took on a rusty colour, with a very dark central shadow, the external parts remaining lighter.
Astronomers at the Paris Observatory attributed to this eclipse a "brightness" of 2, on Danjon’s eclipse scale which has 5 levels (ranging from 0 to 4).
As explained Pascal Descamps, astronomer at the Paris Observatory, at the Institute for Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Computation, « This eclipse enables one to guage the quality of the terrestrial atmosphere. The brightness of the Moon this time showed that the atmosphere was neither specially bad nor specially good, but just about average ", presumably due to the presence of dust at high altitudes »
The next good eclipses of the Moon
The next total lunar eclipse visible in France, identical to yesterday’s, will happen again in just 54 years and 33 days, according to cycle known as the exelignos. See you then, on October 30th, 2069!
But somewhat earlier, another total lunar eclipse visible in France and hight in the sky, will take place on December 20th 2029.
And thus last night’s spectacle was that much more exceptional...