Los Gatos: When To Watch For the April 4 Lunar Eclipse

The Saturday, April 4, total lunar eclipse will be the shortest one of the century, lasting just five minutes or less.

Weather-wise, the National Weather Service predicts the skies will be mostly clear, with a low around 44, in the Peninsula. There may be a slight breeze with wind gusts up to 28 mph overnight, though, so grab that sweater when venturing outdoors.

The April 4 eclipse is the third in a series of four total eclipses with no partial eclipses in between them, known as a tetrad. The dates of the four eclipses in this tetrad are:

• April 14-15, 2014
• Oct. 7-8, 2014
• April 4, 2015
• Sept. 28, 2015

When to Watch

In North America, the eclipse will begin at 3:16 a.m. Pacific time. According to NASA, thetotality of the eclipse will take place over the course of 4 minutes and 43 seconds.

“At North American time zones, that means the greatest eclipse happens before sunrise on April 4 – the morning of April 4, not the evening,” according to earthsky.org.

Earth Sky provided the following breakdown of times to watch here in California, noting that the moon may set before the end of the partial eclipse:

• Partial eclipse begins: 3:16 a.m. PDT
• Total eclipse begins: 4:58 a.m. PDT
• Greatest eclipse: 5:00 a.m. PDT
• Total eclipse ends: 5:03 a.m. PDT
• Partial eclipse ends: 6:45 a.m. PDT

Because of how quickly the eclipse will take place, you may want to venture outside a little earlier to give your eyes time to adjust.

– Patch editors JAIMIE CURA and Renee Schiavone contributed to this report.

Photo by Bill Young, via flickr creative commons

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