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Michigan's night sky will experience a trio of events on Friday

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Credit user earl53 / MorgueFile.com
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MorgueFile.com

Get your binoculars ready! A full moon, an eclipse, and a comet will all be passing through the night sky late Friday night and early Saturday morning. 

A "penumbral" eclipse isn't a full lunar eclipse, and is more subtle, but still visible to the human eye. It occurs when the moon moves through the outer part of the Earth's shadow. In North America, this will be most visible at moonrise, at 7:43 p.m.

Of course, an eclipse can only occur during a full moon. The "snow" moon is the name given to the full moon in February, as opposed to October's "harvest" moon or June's "strawberry" moon.

And on top of these lunar events, NASA says that Comet 45P will reach it's closest position to Earth - a mere 7.4 million miles away.

The comet will be best seen with binoculars or a telescope around 3 a.m. Saturday morning. If you don't want to get up that early, you'll have to wait a while to see it again - it won't be back until 2022!

Copyright 2017 Michigan Radio

Emma is currently the online news intern at Michigan Radio. In addition to covering news, she assists with The Environment Report and other programs. Emma is a senior at the University of Michigan majoring in Communication Studies and Screen Arts & Cultures, and plans to pursue radio and digital journalism in the future. When she's not at Michigan Radio, Emma can be found at various coffee shops around Ann Arbor.