Blood Moon & Total Eclipse: What You Need to Know

Here’s hoping Wednesday morning won’t be rainy and cloudy! All the moongazers will be trotting outside to try and catch a glimpse of the Oct. 8 total lunar eclipse and blood moon.

The forecast for Tuesday night into Wednesday calls for showers between midnight and 9 a.m., and possibly a thunderstorm in the early Wednesday morning hours.

According to the Time & Date eclipse calculator, the moon will be at its maximum eclipse at 6:55 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The eclipse will begin at 4:17 a.m. but falls into the penumbral designation, which often looks like a typical full moon.

The total eclipse begins at 6:27 a.m. with a completely red moon. The moon will be close to the horizon so it is recommended that people look to the west.

The Oct. 8 full moon goes by (at least) two names — the Hunter’s Moon and the Blood Moon.

“In skylore, the Hunter’s Moon is the full moon after the Harvest Moon, which is the full moon closest to the September equinox,” according to the EarthSky website. “It’s characterized by a shorter-than-usual time between moonrises for several nights in a row around full moon. This 2014 Hunter’s Moon features the second of four total lunar eclipses in the ongoing lunar tetrad. Thus this eclipse will be called a Blood Moon.”

The third and fourth lunar eclipse in the tetrad will occur on April 4 and Sept. 28 of 2015.

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Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video, via flickr creative commons