All eyes on the sky for Sunday’s total lunar eclipse

Moon turns a blood red as the sun, Earth and moon align

Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The Moon moves right to left, passing through the penumbra and umbra, leaving in its wake an eclipse diagram with the times at various stages of the eclipse. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio)

HOUSTON – Late Sunday night, people had the opportunity to witness a total lunar eclipse. Eyes were focused on the sky to witness the rare event.

KPRC 2 meteorologists shared a quick breakdown of the timeline of events.

9:28 p.m. - Partial eclipse begins

10:29 p.m. - Total eclipse begins

11:12 p.m. - Maximum eclipse

11:54 p.m. - Total eclipse ends

12:56 p.m. - partial eclipse ends

When the moon will turn red Sunday night. Times are CDT

Totality:

A total eclipse occurs when the full moon enters the Earth’s umbra. Umbra is Latin for shadow. This is the innermost and darkest part of the Earth’s shadow, where light from the sun is completely blocked. This is the point the moon turns a blood red. It will be visible in all of North America. Totality lasts 85 minutes.

The entire United States can see this eclipse (inthesky.org)

The reason the moon changes to a reddish color is because of the Earth’s atmosphere. What we normally see is the white/gray face of moon illuminated by sunlight. But during an eclipse, as the moon enters the Earth’s shadow the only colors refracting onto the surface of the moon are red and orange. If you are on the surface of the moon during an eclipse looking at the Earth, you are seeing every sunrise and sunset at the same time. I think this is really cool!

What the Earth looks like as seen from the moon during a lunar eclipse

The forecast is for partly cloudy skies Sunday night. If you get any excellent pictures, please share them with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, tagging @kprc2anthony.

This is a picture I took of the November 19, 2021, total lunar eclipse at KPRC 2. This is a good example how to our naked eye the red color of the moon is breathtaking. But our mobile phones do not capture this event well. While not needed, binoculars and telescopes enhance the view of the moon.

Total lunar eclipse as seen from KPRC 2 (Copyright 2021 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.)

My all time favorite Lunar Eclipse photo was taken by professional photographer Mike Mezeul. There isn’t a much more Texas moon picture than this.

April 15, 2014 - Shown with permission by Mike Mezuel (Mike Mezeul II mikemezphotography.com 972-365-0118)

This full moon this month is called the Flower Moon. Our last total lunar eclipse was the Flower Moon in May of 2021. Here is a fun video we put together at NBC.

And if you miss this one, the next total lunar eclipse is Nov. 8, 2022 and it will be much earlier, occurring at 5:59 a.m. Sunrise that day is 6:41 a.m.


About the Author

Two-time Emmy award winning meteorologist and recipient of the 2022 American Meteorological Society’s award for Excellence in Science Reporting by a Broadcast Meteorologist.

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