Welcome to the Observatory's Front Page. Included here are some of the latest news and articles that may be of interest to our visitors.
FAU's Astronomical Observatory is housed under a four meter diameter dome on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University. We welcome students, faculty, staff and members of the general public to join our scheduled observations or our public viewing events. Our telescope is mounted on a small platform, at the top of stairs, looking out of the roof of our building, over Boca Raton, to space and beyond!
Section updated: Aug 21 st , 2026.
Head over to the Schmidt College of Science’s Observatory on Aug. 27 beginning at 9 p.m. to view a very deep – almost total! – partial lunar eclipse. Read more.
The Moon will reach its deepest point inside the Earth’s shadow just after midnight on the 28th. For us here in south Florida, expect to see the penumbral first contact point to occur at Aug. 27th, 9:26:19 pm, and be completely inside the Earth’s penumbral shadow by 10:33:02 pm. Then, its first contact with our umbral shadow will be 10:36 pm. The darkest point for us will be 12:20 am on the 28th. Its Last Umbral Contact will be at: 1:50:48 am, as its Last Penumbral Contact: 2:58:49 am.
I’ve made a short video of the event here. Note how the Moon approaches the outer penumbral and inner umbral shadows of the Earth (the two red circles) and how as the shadow crosses the Moon, you can see its part of its round shape when it is going into the shadow and when it leaves the shadow. But don’t take my computer-generated video as fact! No, it is much better for you to see it happen for yourself. No one is going to fake what your own eyes can show you. Just reference the video to understand what is expected to be seen and when. Then also note that from beginning to end, the eclipse will take over 5.5 hours to occur! In that time, the Earth will have rotated over 82°. Yet each part shows that the shadow it casts out in that direction is round! This is an observation that Pythagoras made 25 centuries ago and recognized as proof of the spherical shape of the Earth. The only object that always casts a round shadow, no matter which direction the surround light travels out to, is a sphere. You have the opportunity to observe this for yourself and then the satisfaction of understanding how we know the shape of our home planet.
If you prefer more information, head to NASA’s Eclipse Predictions are by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC Emeritus (“Mr. Eclipse!”). He had plotted out 5000 years of eclipse events! Just like this one: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2026Aug28P.pdf
