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Vol. 63, Issue 73
Proudly serving Cranbrook and area since 1951
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PHOTOS COURTESY RICK NOWELL/COLLEGE OF THE ROCKIES
A lunar eclipse turned the moon red in the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 15. A telescope at the College of the Rockies captured the eclipse in pictures as it progressed from midnight until 3:50 a.m. Top left and then clockwise: The earth’s shadow crosses and eclipses the moon, causing it to turn red. Centre: The “blood moon” at its height. Top row, second from right, and then clockwise: The earth’s shadow passes, and the moon returns to normal “full” state. S A L LY M AC D O N A L D Townsman Staff
Cranbrook was treated to a spectacular sky show overnight between Monday, April 14 and Tuesday, April 15 when a “blood moon” graced the spring sky. The moon turned red for about one hour and 18 minutes during the full lunar eclipse, when the moon, Earth and sun were completely lined up. The reflection of the sun on Earth cast a red-orange glow on the moon as it was shielded from the sun’s direct light. Rick Nowell, an astrono-
To the moon and back A lunar eclipse turned the full moon red for just over an hour overnight on the morning of Tuesday, April 15
mer at the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook, captured the eclipse using the college’s telescope, the Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain, with an 11-inch primary mirror. “It’s meant for higher magnifications, so I had to attach a focal reducer to just barely fit all the moon in the picture,” said Nowell.
In Cranbrook, the eclipse began at about 11 p.m. when the full moon was still visible to the south. Mars was closest to Earth on Monday also, so it was very bright in the sky nearby, Nowell said. “The moon moved slowly easterly in the sky, and entered the Earth’s shadow at midnight. The black part of
the shadow cut a curved line into the moon’s edge and gradually crept along for an hour, until the last bright edge narrowed and went dark at 1 a.m.,” said Nowell. “Unfortunately, a thin haze to the south started to cover the moon, and a lot of the photos became fuzzy after this. The dim orangey moon faded in and out be-
hind clouds, but the camera was able to compensate somewhat.” While Earth was completely obscuring the sun, the sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere made the moon glow a reddish orange, Nowell went on. “It took about three hours for the moon to move
through the Earth’s shadow. In the photos you can see that the moon was not evenly illuminated, since its orbit was a bit north of (above) the shadow cone.” The moon came out of the shadows at about 2:30 a.m., Nowell said, and it was back to a normal full moon at about 3:50 a.m. “If you missed this one, the next lunar eclipse is on October 8, 2014,” he added. “This year we get to see a solar eclipse too: There will be a partial solar eclipse in Cranbrook on October 23 at 3:45 p.m.”
How to protect yourself from the Heartbleed bug As 900 Canadians have had their social insurance numbers stolen, the Better Business Bureau is providing guidelines on how to protect the personal information you send online
S A L LY M AC D O N A L D
The Canada Revenue Agency is this week notifying 900 taxpayers who it believes had their social insurance numbers stolen as a result of the Heartbleed bug that has affected hundreds of prominent websites. The tax agency shut down public access to its online services on Tuesday,
April 8, after it discovered that the Heartbleed encryption vulnerability had affected people using the CRA’s website. The social insurance numbers were stolen over a six-hour period by someone exploiting the vulnerability in many supposedly secure websites that used an open-source encryption system.
The agency is sending registered letters to those taxpayers who are affected, rather than emailing because it doesn’t want fraudsters to use phishing schemes to further exploit the privacy breach. The CRA website was brought back online on Sunday, April 13 after the CRA patched and relaunched its online ser-
vices, including the E-file and Netfile online income tax portals. People who were not able to file their income tax last week because of the website shutdown have been given an extra week to make the tax deadline. CRA has extended the filing deadline to May 5, 2014 before penalties apply. The Heartbleed bug –
which had made websites vulnerable for up to two years before it was discovered last week – gave hackers access to passwords, credit card numbers and other information at many websites. Websites that were vulnerable to the bug include Google, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Netflix and Blogspot. Users of those
websites are being asked to change their passwords. The Better Business Bureau of East Kootenay is going one step forward and suggesting that consumers change their passwords on all sites they use, particularly those that retain personal identifying information.
See GUIDELINES, Page 4