When to Watch for Tonight's Lunar Eclipse

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Total Lunar Eclipse 2004.

By Lance Ulanoff2014-04-14 19:27:41 UTC

Tonight the moon will turn red and if you’re in virtually any place in the Western hemisphere –- and you can stay awake — you should be able to see it.

This extraordinary celestial show is, in fact, a product of a relatively rare full-lunar eclipse. The Earth, moon and sun will be in alignment for a few hours on April 15 (early Tuesday morning), so that our blue orb’s shadow will pass over the moon. Light from the sun will scatter through the earth’s atmosphere and illuminate the moon (NASA describes it as a “all the sunsets on Earth, projected onto the Moon”), resulting in the moon’s temporary “red” appearance. The so-called “Blood Moon” will more likely be a lovely shade of rose.

It’s an exciting astronomical event, but figuring out when you need to look up (if you’re up) can be a bit of a trick, especially if you use one of the various and confusing time tables presented online. We, like you, are a little lazy about doing the math between time zones. So we present a set of time-zone maps that tell you exactly when, in your area, you should be scanning the sky to get the best view. And when you do that lunar gazing, be sure to look somewhat due west to catch the moon as it moves across the sky, heading to the western horizon, where it will set.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been flying around the moon and collecting images and data for five years, will have the best seat in the house for the whole event. Unfortunately, since the Earth will be blocking the sun, the LRO will not be getting its usual solar charge. As a result, NASA will put it in a low-power phase for the duration of the eclipse and the LRO will not be making any scientific observations during the eclipse.

“It’s the longest time the spacecraft will be in darkness, shadow and cold, so we’re being very, very cautious,” said NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Research Scientist Noah Petro. NASA plans on heating the LRO up prior to the eclipse and then monitoring it very closely throughout. However, the odds of something catastrophic happening to the LRO are, Petro said, “exceptionally low.”

A NASA spacecraft that’s unlikely to survive the total lunar eclipse is LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer). It’s set to crash into the moon, as planned, either during or soon after the eclipse.

If cloud cover makes ruins your chances of watching the eclipse, NASA will be live streaming unobscured telescope views throughout the night.

Don’t fee tool badly if you do miss this lunar eclipse. NASA’s Petro said we’re in the midst of “tetrad,” or four total eclipses in a row. After Tuesday morning, there’ll be one in October, then two more in 2015.

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