How you can see the lunar eclipse and blood moon in Wigan

The eclipse on Friday is is expected to start just before dawn on Friday, March 14, as the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon.

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich said the Moon would first move into the Earth’s penumbra – the outer part of our planet’s shadow – just before 4am, with the best views of the eclipse coming just before 6.20am. It added the eclipse’s maximum would come shortly before 7am but by that point the Moon will have gone below the horizon.

And if conditions are right, people can expect the Moon to turn a shade of red, a phenomenon also known as a blood moon.

According to Nasa: "Some of the sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere reaches the Moon’s surface, lighting it dimly.

"Colours with shorter wavelengths – the blues and violets – scatter more easily than colours with longer wavelengths, like red and orange.

"Because these longer wavelengths make it through Earth’s atmosphere, and the shorter wavelengths have scattered away, the Moon appears orange or reddish during a lunar eclipse. The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon appears.”

The best views of Friday’s eclipse are likely to be from high ground with clear views to the west – providing the skies are clear.

The chance of seeing the blood moon in Wigan is good if the skies are clear.

This is because the partial lunar eclipse will be visible from anywhere in the UK.

However, light pollution from cities could make it harder to see.

Share your snaps: if you take pictures of Friday’s lunar eclipse, share them with us and Wigan Today readers – upload your images at https://www.yourworld.net/submit/ selecting Wigan Today.