Buildup to super blood moon eclipses the finale

In the end, the buildup may have been more spectacular than the finale

ByNICK PERRY Associated Press
May 26, 2021, 8:24 PM

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- In the end, the buildup seemed to eclipse the finale.


During the buildup, a glittering moon rose above the horizon. As the Earth's shadow began taking bites from the moon, it created a dramatic effect. Half the moon vanished, leaving it looking like a black-and-white cookie.


In celestial terms, it was a wonder: a projection of the world's sunsets and sunrises onto the black canvas of the eclipsed moon. But for people peering up from their backyards, it wasn't quite the brilliant display they had anticipated. Not quite super or blood-colored.



John Rowe, an educator at the Stardome Observatory & Planetarium in Auckland, said it was like the moon turned into a big, spooky smile looking down at him. That's because of a bright rim that remained at the bottom.


The full eclipse lasted about 15 minutes, while the whole cosmic show lasted five hours. A partial eclipse began as the moon edged into the Earth's outer shadow, called the penumbra, before moving more fully into the main shadow and then reversing the process.

Rowe likes to imagine it as if he's standing on the moon. The Earth would come across and block out the sun. The reddish light around the edges would be the sunsets and sunrises happening at that time on Earth, projected onto the moon's surface. Pretty cool, he reckons.







Once they arrived, he set up his camera as the eclipse neared totality just after 3 a.m. local time, when it looked more like dusk than night. That's because Anchorage had more than 18 hours of sunlight on Wednesday.





For those living in places where the eclipse wasn't visible, there were livestreams available. And everyone around the world got to see the bright moon, weather permitting.




Associated Press writers Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, Zen Soo in Hong Kong, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

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