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The Society of Physics Students and the Department of Physics and Astronomy will be hosting a star party with telescopes and binoculars to view the eclipse on Sunday, Sept. 27 beginning at 7 p.m.

The gathering will be held in the open grassy area to the west of the Student Recreation and Wellness Center on the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh campus. Parking is available in the Kolf Sports Center parking lot.

For Oshkosh, the partial eclipse of the moon will begin at 8:07 p.m. The full eclipse runs from 9:11 to 10:23 p.m., with the lead time at 9:47 p.m.. The partial eclipse of the moon will end at 11:27 p.m.

“A total lunar eclipse is a special event by itself. This Sunday will include two other celestial events which makes this eclipse even more special. During a total lunar eclipse, the full moon passes completely within the shadow of the Earth. When this occurs, the moon does not become completely dark as one might expect. Instead the moon will become “blood red. This happens because some of the sun’s light passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, where the bluer light is scattered away and the redder light passes through,” explained Chris Christopherson, a UW Oshkosh physics student, who presented at Posters on the Hill in Washington D.C. last April.

This eclipse is extra special in that it is also the harvest moon and a “supermoon.” The harvest moon is the full moon that occurs nearest the autumnal (or fall) equinox. The name comes from the extra light this full moon would give to farmers during harvest time. The “supermoon” occurs when the moon is at its closest point to the Earth in its orbit. The moon’s orbit is not a perfect circle, so sometimes it is closer to the Earth than at other times. The difference in the size of the Moon is so small that the human eye cannot detect it. The last time a total lunar eclipse occurred during a “supermoon” was in 1982 and the next one will not occur until 2033.