Total Lunar Eclipse

There is a lunar eclipse coming up tomorrow night (Wednesday February 20). North and South America should have a good view of the total eclipse. It will start at 10:01 pm EST and last 51 minutes.

I'm excited about it. My parents always showed us the events of the night sky. We stayed up late watching the Pereid meteor shower (every August) the night before school started. We saw Haley's comet and other wonders. They made a point of taking advantage of learning opportunities that they knew wouldn't come around often.

While living in Flagstaff in August, 2003 we had the chance to see Mars at its closest point to Earth in almost 60,000 years. We saw it through the original 24-inch Clark Refracting Telescope at the Lowell Observatory where Percival Lowell studied Mars (and discovered the canals on Mars). The telescope is the same one that Percival Lowell built in 1896. On the same sight is the Pluto Discovery Telescope through which Pluto was discovered in 1930.

Luckily the eclipse starts right at my kids' bedtime (8:00 pm MST) so they can stay up a little bit to see it as well. Read more about the eclipse on Space.com.