Photo: Getty Images
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — In the waking hours of Election Day, there will be a rare event happening in the dark sky: the last total lunar ellipse for three years will tint the Moon a reddish shade in Earth's shadow.
Though it will be an early morning ordeal for New England, scientists estimate the total eclipse will be visible from around 5:16 a.m. to 6:42 a.m. Eastern Time. Often called "Blood Moons," a total lunar eclipse happens when the Sun, Earth, and Moon fall into the exact alignment where the Moon passes into Earth's shadow, the darkest portion of which is called the umbra.
Once the Moon is under the Earth's umbra, it will turn a reddish hue.
If you can't get yourself to rally in time for the spectacle, the YouTube channel TimeandDate, an organization that records both lunar and solar eclipses, is hosting a livestream on Tuesday.
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the almost one-and-a-half-hour-long totality won't be coming back until March 14, 2025— though we'll still see a number of partial and penumbral lunar eclipses in the meantime. Though the eclipse will be visible to the naked eye, officials say looking through binoculars or telescopes will enhance the view and the prominent red shade of the Moon.
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NASA also shared a shadow diagram and visibility map as resources for interested onlookers, saying that both Hawaii and Alaska are in the best position to see the entire event from start to finish.
Photo: Photo Courtesy of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio.
Because the moonlight will be dimmer with its reddish glint, more stars and planets will be visible than usual. This includes Uranus, as NASA scientists say spectators will be able to see the planet through a telescope on Tuesday morning.
WBZ's Brooke McCarthy (@BrookeWBZ) reports.
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