This weekend, stargazers will be treated to a number of celestial events, including the Hunter's Moon, a lunar eclipse and the Orionid Peaks meteor shower.
The highlight over the next few days is likely to be this year's Hunter's Moon, which is the full moon that occurs directly after September's Harvest Moon, will happen on the evening of Friday Oct. 18, according to a report from Weather.com. The moon will first be visible at 7:38 p.m. EST, but will continue to shine through the night.
"October's full moon is called the 'Hunter's Moon' or sometimes the 'Blood Moon'," said Dr. Tony Phillips of NASA. "It gets it's name from hunters who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead."
The Hunter's Moon will also be rising during a partial lunar eclipse. The last eclipse of 2013 will be a type of eclipse called penumbral. Penumbral eclipses happen when the Earth's outer shadow partially covers the moon.
"Be forewarned...the moon will not dip into the Earth's dark umbral shadow during this eclipse...at no time will it appear as if a dark bite has been taken by the moon," said Deborah Byrd of EarthSky.org. "At best, the penumbral eclipse may be seen as a shading of the moon's southern limb."
"This is a relatively deep penumbral eclipse, however, with 76 percent of the moon shaded by the Earth's penumbral shadow at mid-eclipse," Byrd explained.
According to EarthSky.org the eclipse begins at 21:51 UTC with the greatest part of the eclipse occurring at 23:50 UTC (7:50 p.m. EST) and the eclipse will end near 01:50 UTC.
Thanks to the crew at Slooh, online viewers can watch a live webcast of the entire eclipse on their website, beginning at 2:45 p.m. EST. At 7:30, Slooh's Paul Cox will join the webcast to explain what creates the various types of lunar and solar eclipses.
Lastly, National Geographic reports that on Sunday night October 20 and on into early Monday morning, the Orionid meteor shower will peak. With a maximum of about 20 meteors per hour, the Orionids are reported to be a result of material that comes from Halley's Comet. This material "slams" into the atmosphere, creating a shower of shooting stars.
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