ECO: 2.20.08

Tonights Lunar Eclipse!!

Head down to Santa Fe Community College to experience the lunar elcipse! The eclipse will occur at Aprrox. 8:43PM tonight! Events start earlier.

Extra Credit Oppotunity! Head down to Santa Fe around starting at 6:30 and enjoy the festivities! If you write a 1/2 page blurb about the experience get 30pts of extra credit! Add pictures if you can!

Press Release from SFCC -
Total Lunar Eclipse: Don't Miss the Only Eclipse This Year Visible from North America!
Free lunar eclipse planetarium shows, telescope viewing, space music, and NASA webcast at SFCC Feb. 20
This year will display a total of four eclipses for the earth to see: two solar and two lunar. Don't miss the only eclipse of 2008 visible from North America, the total lunar eclipse of Feb. 20. This will be the last total lunar eclipse visible from the Americas until Dec. 21, 2010. Santa Fe Community College, with the Alachua Astronomy Club as special guests, will provide extensive opportunities for the public to enjoy this special event to the fullest.
The entire eclipse will be visible from Florida. The portion of the eclipse noticeable to the naked eye will begin at 8:43 p.m. EST on Feb. 20 and will continue until just past midnight into Feb. 21. Prominently placed high in the eastern sky in the constellation Leo, the moon will be closely flanked by a colorful legion of guards: reddish Regulus, Leo's brightest star, to the northwest, and the planet Saturn, glowing golden to the northeast.
Beginning at 6:30 p.m., the SFCC's Kika Silva Pla Planetarium's Laurent Pellerin will present four special, free 20-minute presentations of "Moon Shadows," its total lunar eclipse planetarium show. "Moon Shadows" will briefly explain the mechanics of lunar and solar eclipses, and give you a computer-animated view of the eclipse from both the earth and the moon, to give you a better appreciation of the beauty of a total lunar eclipse. Showtimes are 6:30, 7, &:30 and 8 p.m. and seating is limited to 64 per show. Follow the signs on SFCC's North Drive to the planetarium, behind the Natural Sciences Building.
Beginning at 8 p.m., in the Astronomy Laboratory (Building X, room 213), video projection of simulations of the eclipse created by SFCC Astronomy Professor Sally Hoffman and David Castillo will run continuously prior to the live NASA webcast beginning at 8:43 p.m. Telescopic observations of the eclipse will begin at 8:30 p.m. through 12:15 a.m. Hoffman and members of the Alachua Astronomy Club, will host the observation and be available to answer questions. Telescopes will be set up on the sidewalk on the north side of Building X, the Natural Sciences Building, which is next to the SFCC Police Station and the planetarium. If the sky is completely cloudy sand obscuring the moon, the video events will still go on so that you can view it from a site with clear skies. Both outdoors and in the laboratory, there will be Space Music for Eclipse Observations, mixed by and provided exclusively for this event by Castillo.
For lunar eclipses, there are no viewing precautions. The eclipse can be viewed directly with the naked eye, with binoculars, or through a telescope, and may be safely photographed with any type of camera.
SFCC students and employees and the general public are invited. Still cameras, video cameras, and cell-phone cameras are welcome; but remember that photography in the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium is not possible. Free images of the moon will be distributed to the first 100 people by Hoffman.
On the Web
Visit the Kika Silva Pla Planetarium online at http://www.sfcc.edu/planetarium/
The Alachua Astronomy Club is online at http://www.floridastars.org/
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Contact:
SFCC Astronomy Professor Sally Hoffman, Ph.D., for information about everything but the planetarium shows, 352-395-5354 (office) or email to sally.hoffman@sfcc.edu
Laurent Pellerin, director, Kika Silva Pla Planetarium 352-395-5381 or his cell at 352-213-0950, or laurent.pellerin@sfcc.edu
Julie Garrett, for help facilitating your story, 395-5430 or 870-2924 (cell), or julie.garrett@sfcc.edu