Solar Eclipse Tonight, May 20th

I have seen one, probably the one in that article, but I had forgotten it. Can someone explain why it appears that way?

 

Earth' s atmosphere bends, scatters or refracts solar rays in different ways, depending on its amount of dust, clouds, particles etc ...
I think that one was an almost total eclipse (which looks like Earth' shadow is biting the moon).

 

hmph, why did I have to be gone all day to miss this? I mean, I was at an amusement park in North Carolina/South Carolina, but I didn't know anything about a solar eclipse.....hmph

 

I'm pretty sure it's June 5th, and I have Pacific.

 

The Moon is illuminated by the sun right, so you see a full moon. But then you see the shadow of the Earth fall on the moon and slowly pass over it (as the sun is behind the Earth), blocking the light out to make it looks orangy or red (because the little light reaching it must first pass through our atmosphere, which filters out the blue light to give us a blue sky) for a little while, between half an hour to a few hours depending on the geometry, in which you see the shadow of the Earth move slowly across the moon. You can get a total lunar eclipse, when the Earth's shadow completely falls across the surface of the moon, or partial, where it might just travel across the top half or so. These occur 2 or 3 times a year depending on where you are, and always happen during a full moon.

A new moon is when the sun is on the other side of the moon, illuminating that side but leaving the side we always see in complete darkness, making it barely visible from Earth. This happens around once every 28 days and lasts about a day. Astronomy nerd here :)

Anyway! Very sad I couldn't see this, the last Solar eclipse in Britain was when I was about 3 I think. It was cloudy. The next one won'y be until I am 97.