Harvard students congregated outside last night by the light of the silvery moon--well, not quite.

There wasn't much light, or much of a moon, due to a lunar eclipse that lasted from about 5 p.m. until about 8:20 p.m. But for most of the students, that was the attraction.

Inspired by the lunar eclipse, three first-year students sang the Canadian national anthem to celebrate the moon's disappearance.

More than 30 students cheered on the impromptu performance, which took place in front of the Harvard Union.

"It was a very rousting moment," said Joseph N. Zawadzki '96, one of the singers.

"We all felt really bonded," added Terran M. Senftleben '96, another singer.

Senftleben and Andrew O. Wilson '96 are Canadian, and Zawadski attended school there for several years.

According to Professor of Astronomy Robert W. Noyes, lunar eclipses are fairly common and occur one or two times a year. They occur when the shadow of the earth prevents the sun's rays from reflecting off the moon's surface, he said.

Unlike solar eclipses, which can be seen only in certain earth where it's nighttime, Noyes said."Millions of people will see it tonight," he said.

Noyes said that this eclipse was unusualbecause Mt. Pinatubo, which erupted last summerand sent gasses into the atmosphere, blocked outmuch of the sun's blue lights and, therefore, madethe moon's reflection appear redder.

Noyes and the 22 students of Science A-36,"Observing the Sun and the Stars," watched theeclipse from the roof of the Science Center. Noyesand Professor of Astronomy Jonathan E. Grindlay,who co-teaches the class, used high precisionequipment to monitor the amount of light that wasreflected.

Some students in Noyes's class interviewedyesterday said the lunar eclipse gave them abetter understanding of the concepts that theyhave been studying.

"It was a really different way of seeing themoon because you could make out that it was thishuge, round object," said Mary Grace Ruben '96