Google Doodle on lunar eclipse (15-16/06/2011)

Google Doodle on lunar eclipse (15-16/06/2011),

Google Doodle gives online astronomers live feed of lunar eclipse

Stargazers and astronomy fans who could not watch Thursday's total lunar eclipse got a live feed of the phenomenon online, thanks to a Google Doodle and a robotic telescope service.

Google's home page featured a "live" doodle showing a live feed of the lunar eclipse from images from robotic telescope service Slooh.




"Starting now, see the latest state of the lunar eclipse on our homepage - thanks @slooh for the imagery," Google said on its Twitter account.

During the eclipse, visitors to Google.com can see a dial at the bottom of the image moving left to right, going through the various stages of the eclipse, before settling on the current feed.

Slooh claims to have members in 80 countries who have taken 1.3 million photos of 35,000 unique objects and events in the night sky since its launch on Dec. 25, 2003.

It is now in a initiative with Google Sky to Map the Universe and co-promote live astronomy.

"All SLOOH member photos will now be integrated into Google Earth/Sky for the world to see, and SLOOH's live missions will be featured as well. SLOOH also shares the view with schools throughout the world and your membership supports this educational outreach," it said.

The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration earlier said the event could be seen from the eastern half of Africa, the Middle East, central Asia and western Australia.

But it said observers throughout Europe will miss the early stages of the eclipse because they occur before moonrise.

On the other hand, Eastern Asia, eastern Australia, and New Zealand would miss the last stages of eclipse because they occur after moonset.

Even observers in eastern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina will witness totality.