The Moon revolves around the Earth: this allows us to occasionally witness eclipses of the Moon or the Sun. The main difference between these two phenomena is their visibility: a lunar eclipse is visible from all points of the Earth from the moment when we can see the Moon, whereas a solar eclipse is only observed from one of the points of the whole band. Let us study each of these phenomena in more detail.
The lunar eclipse occurs when The earth is located exactly between the Sun and the Moon. If the three stars are perfectly aligned, the Earth is shading the moon that disappears for a few hours. It sometimes happens that the Moon is not in the exact axis: the shadow of the Earth bites only partially its satellite. It is a partial eclipse by the shadow. Finally, the last case, when the Moon is even more out of line with the axis, is where only the penumbra veil the Moon: it is an eclipse by the penumbra.
Plunging slowly into the shadow of the Earth, the Moon takes on a red-orange color. When it is totally obliterated, its brightness is low but easily visible to the naked eye. As a result, the weak stars in the vicinity of the Moon reappear clearly, while they were confused in the sky too bright before the whole.
The solar eclipse occurs when the Moon interposes between the Sun and the Earth. The shadow of the Moon then projects onto the Earth to form what is called the totality band. Sun eclipses last a few hours, but the total seldom exceeds 7 minutes. When the Moon is too far from Earth, its diameter becomes too small to completely hide the Sun's disk: it is an annular eclipse. Out of the whole band, which can sometimes not touch the surface of the Earth, observers witness a partial solar eclipse.
As the dark lunar disk invades the solar disk, the brightness becomes smaller. The brilliant stars (Venus, Mercury, etc.) then appear little by little. At the beginning of the totality, a darkness more or less deep settles and one can attend the magnificent spectacle of the grayish solar crown with, at its base, some protuberances of a bright red.