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See The Show: Total Lunar Eclipse

There’s a treat in store in the skies early Tuesday morning across the North Escambia area– the year’s only total lunar eclipse.

From beginning to end, the eclipse will last about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. For observers in the North Escambia area, the eclipse lasts from 12:33 a.m. through 4:01 a.m.  Totality, the time when Earth’s shadow completely covers the moon, will last a lengthy 72 minutes.

While it is merely a coincidence that the eclipse falls on the same date as this year’s winter solstice, for eclipse watchers this means that the moon will appear very high in the night sky, as the solstice marks the time when the Earth’s axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. It’s the first total eclipse on the winter solstice since 1554.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth lines up directly between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun’s rays and casting a shadow on the moon. As the moon moves deeper and deeper into the Earth’s shadow, the moon changes color before your very eyes, turning from gray to an orange or deep shade of red.

The moon takes on this new color because indirect sunlight is still able to pass through Earth’s atmosphere and cast a glow on the moon. Our atmosphere filters out most of the blue colored light, leaving the red and orange hues that we see during a lunar eclipse. Extra particles in the atmosphere, from say a recent volcanic eruption, will cause the moon to appear a darker shade of red.

Unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are perfectly safe to view without any special glasses or equipment. All you need is you own two eyes. It will be the last chance for sky watchers in the continental U.S. to see a total lunar eclipse until April 15, 2014.

Pictured above: Path and times local to North Escambia for the eclipse, click to enlarge. Pictured below: The Total Lunar Eclipse of July 16, 2000 was a very long total eclipse (1 hour 47 minutes) that won’t be exceeded for over a thousand years. Courtesy Fred Espenak/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.