Total lunar eclipse will bring blood red moon to Edmonton

If the skies are clear Sunday evening, Edmontonians can step outside for a light show of a different sort, as a total lunar eclipse will create a blood red moon in the night sky.

The eclipse will begin about 8:30 p.m. and end shortly before midnight, with a 62-minute period of totality beginning at 9:41 p.m., said Frank Florian, planetarium director at Telus World of Science, in a Monday interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.

"It doesn't take place at three in the morning or something like that, so it's an opportunity for people to glance outside and look at this red moon in the sky," said Florian.

During a lunar eclipse, the moon passes through a shadow cast out into space by Earth. A total eclipse, visible to only half the world, occurs when the central, dark part of the shadow obscures all of the moon's surface, leaving a glowing red ring.

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Total lunar eclipses generally happen aboutonce every three years, but this weekend's event is the second inrelatively quick succession, said Florian.

However, not many people were able to enjoy the last one, which was visible in Edmonton in January 2018.

"It happened really early in the morning, around four, five in the morning. So not too many people were out and about," he said.

"And it was also minus thirty. So it was kind of a really cold eclipse."

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The Telus World of Sciencewill be hosting eclipse-related eventsstarting at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, including opportunities to view the night sky from the RASC Observatory and other telescopes that will be set up. The IMAX film First Man, about the Apollo 11 mission, will be running and there will be special shows in the Zeidler Dome explaining "the geometry of eclipses," both solar and lunar.

Florian noted that the partial solar eclipse experienced in Edmonton in August 2017 was a notably more high-profile event mainly because the moon passing in front of the sun happens much more rarely.

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"If we want to see one here in Edmonton, of a total solar eclipse, we will have to wait until the year 2044, in the month of August, in the early evening," he said. "As you can see, those things are a lot rarer."

A lunar eclipse doesn't require people to travel outside the city to see it, but Florian said it would help.

When the moon is full, it casts a lot of light, which creates its own light pollution, hiding some of the fainter stars, he said. But during a total eclipse, the moon darkens and so does the sky.

"You'll be able to see all the stars around the silhouette of the red moon, which makes for a very nice view."