Question: Does the moon look better after the lunar eclipse because i looked at it yeaterday and it was amazing it was big and yellow like in bruce almighty when he drags it closer and i was just wondering will i have to wait until another lunar eclipse for it to look like that again and take a picture?

Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 19 Jun 2011:

The moon often appears larger when it is low in the sky. This is an optical illusion (it doesn’t actually change size), but to our eye it certainly looks better.

Also, the sky conditions can also change the view. Clear weather, free of cloud (even high thin cloud) can improve viewing conditions.

There is usually a wait from one eclipse to the next. You can find a list of all the upcoming lunar eclipses on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse

However, depending on the time of day, not all of them are visible from Europe. For instance, the eclipse might occur when we’re on the “sun side”, rather than the “moon side”.

I was not able to see the last one, because I live in the Arctic. At this time of year, the sun is always above the horizon, so a lunar eclipse puts the moon exactly opposite the sun in the sky. So if the sun is up, the moon is down. I will have to wait for another time.