Just before the sun rises on Tuesday morning, the sky will offer a rare spectacle to early risers: a full, reddish Moon, a “Blood Moon”, will rise on the southwestern horizon, manifesting a total lunar eclipse which will begin shortly after 4 a.m.
Posted at 7:15 p.m.
From exactly 4:09 a.m., the Moon will gradually enter the shadow of the Earth, which will slip between it and the Sun. An hour later, at 5:09 a.m., Earth will block all light from the Sun to the Moon.
All the light? No. The Earth’s atmosphere, which acts as a filter, will only let out red light, which will bounce off the Moon. Hence the reddish hue that the star will take for about an hour before disappearing.
“What we will see is the beginning of the partial eclipse until the total eclipse”, says Philippe Moussette, photographer and amateur astronomer. It will then be nearly 6 a.m., the moon will disappear from the horizon to go to bed, and the first light of day will spoil the end of the show.
Still, it will be worth getting up early, believes Philippe Moussette. To make sure you have a good show, he suggests being in a place where the view to the southwest will be sufficiently clear. Unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses can be viewed safely with the naked eye. Tuesday morning, the Moon will be quite low on the horizon, which will give beautiful perspectives with buildings and other elements of the landscape, says Philippe Moussette. The eclipse will also be visible in Asia, Australia and the Pacific Rim just after sunset.
And if we prefer to sleep in on Tuesday, we will have to wait until March 2025 to reconnect with a total lunar eclipse visible in Canada.