Blood Moon Rising – Stay up Thursday night to witness a total lunar eclipse

While solar eclipses seem to get the best press in the entertainment and literature industries – see A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Ladyhawke for examples – the nighttime version’s lunar eclipse is frequently more eye-catching… and safe to view.

This Thursday night all the way into Friday morning, the Earth, Moon, and Sun line up just right to create the cosmic-scale shadow of a total lunar eclipse, where Earth’s shadow obscures the full Moon. 

Unlike a solar eclipse that is fraught with warnings about burning out your retinas, lunar eclipses are completely safe to look at with the naked eye. This eclipse will give us a ‘blood moon,’ where the shift in cosmic light will make our planet’s natural satellite take on a crimson look. 

All throughout The Woodlands, you’ll be able to see this eclipse. You won’t need any special equipment to observe it, although binoculars or a telescope will enhance the view. A dark environment away from bright lights makes for the best viewing conditions.

Its first phase – known as a penumbral eclipse – will start at 10:57 p.m. Thursday night. It’s an inauspicious start; this phase has the Moon traveling through Earth’s penumbra, or the faint outer part of its shadow. The Moon dims so slightly that it can be difficult to notice. But just over an hour, shortly after midnight, the partial phase of the eclipse will commence, and from that moment on you’ll definitely be able to chart the progress. 

The total eclipse will start at around 1:30 in the morning, and the maximum point of the eclipse will occur at just before two o’clock. From that moment on, there will be the gradual shift from blood red to normal moon silver, and the entire event will conclude right around 5:00 a.m. Friday morning. From beginning to end, the eclipse will take six hours and three minutes.

While the timing of this eclipse isn’t too bad, what with it being Spring Break and all, you can catch the next total lunar eclipse in early September, just as long as you happen to be on the opposite hemisphere of the planet. If you want to experience it again from the comfort of your own yard, you won’t even have to wait a year – the next one is planned for March 3, 2026.

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