BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Lunar Eclipse coming soon - Mark your calendar!

A total lunar eclipse occurs on April 14-15. If you're in North America or western South America, you'll be well-placed to see the whole show. Alas, in most of Europe, Asia or Africa, you won't see anything at all. Many people who can't see total eclipse will still get a partial eclipse. Here's a map showing the eclipse visibility.

This will be the first total lunar eclipse since 2011, so if you're lucky enough to be on the eclipse path, be sure to have a look. It goes on for a long time, so you can watch different phases of it and have plenty of time to get on with other things too. I find it fascinating to see the silvery Moon going through a whole range of shapes. At totality, it doesn't disappear, but goes a reddish color.

The upcoming lunar eclipse will be the first of a tetrad, which is a series of four total eclipses which take place in two consecutive years. Tetrads don't happen all that often, but there was another one in 2003-4. And there will be a further six in the 21st century. Some centuries have no tetrads. The maximum number in a century is eight.

I've been asked why the Moon is red instead of dark at totality.

If Earth didn't have an atmosphere - which would, of course, be bad for us - the Moon would just disappear at totality. No sunlight gets through the solid Earth. But some light comes through the atmosphere.

Sunlight is a mixture of all colors, which makes white. So the Moon tends to be a silvery color. But as the light travels through the air, the bluer light gets scattered away, but the reddish light travels the long distance. That's the light that's still reflected off the Moon at totality.

More about lunar eclipses - click here.

The total eclipse will be visible - weather permitting - in almost all of North America. (Alaska, New England, and the far east of Canada may see a partial eclipse or nothing at all.) Here is the eclipse timing for Eastern Daylight time. Night owls on the west coast will find the time more congenial.

For those of us who can't see the eclipse, due to local weather conditions or being in the wrong part of the world, it's still possible to see it online.

(1) The eclipse will begin on Tuesday morning, April 15, at about 2 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. UTC). NASA will stream a live view of the lunar eclipse, courtesy of Marshall Space Flight Center. It will be on this channel

(2) If you're in southern California, you can see the eclipse live in person at the Griffith Observatory. They're having a big public open event from 7:00 p.m. April 14 to 2:00 a.m. April 15 local time. Check their website for details. It sounds great. Wish I were there!

For those of us not in the neighborhood, look at Griffith Observatory TV. In California, the eclipse will be starting around 11.00 p.m. on Monday PDT.

(3) SLOOH will be doing live coverage and commentary, including some from Timothy Ferris. I can't tell where their coverage will be coming from, but it looks to me as though it should also be starting up at 2.00 EDT on April 15.

A number of people noticed a blue edging to the Moon as they watched the eclipse on April 15. Professor Richard Keen explained that this is due to ozone in the upper stratosphere. Most of the sunlight that illuminates the Moon during an eclipse is red, but the ozone in the upper atmosphere absorbs the red and makes the light bluer.

If there's volcanic dust or aerosols clogging up the atmosphere, you get dark red eclipses. Professor Keen said that this orange eclipse with a turquoise fringe suggests a clear stratosphere.