If the weather cooperates, the Tampa Bay area may get to see a "blood-red moon" early Tuesday.
A total lunar eclipse, in which the moon passes behind the earth into its shadow, will happen between 3:06 a.m. and 4:24 a.m. It will be visible throughout North and South America, but in west-central Florida, cloudy skies could well ruin the display.
"You'll have to be extremely lucky to see much," Bay News 9 Chief Meteorologist Mike Clay said, offering a forecast that calls for no chance of clear skies and only a 50 percent chance the skies won't be mostly cloudy.
But that doesn't mean it wont' be worth setting the alarm for 2:30 a.m. or so and walking outside to take a gander.
"It's the moon, not Venus, so if we have partly cloudy skies, you may get to see something," Clay said, referring to the relative size and brightness of the moon compared to a planet.
When the moon becomes engulfed in the earth's shadow, the only light hitting it will be the sunlight that is refracted by the earth's atmosphere. The only light not filtered out is red, so the moon becomes darker and becomes red or orange to the naked eye.
Hence, the name "blood-red moon."
“It’s not because it’s covered in blood, it’s because it takes on this reddish hue," NASA scientist Shawn Domagal-Goldman told Bay News 9 in a Talkback segment Monday. "The reason for that is the little bit of sunlight that does get through the earth to hit the moon is going to pass through our atmosphere, and it’s going to get filtered the same way that sunrises and sunsets get filtered."
A lunar eclipse is different from a solar eclipse, in which the moon passes in front of the sun. There were two solar eclipses last year, including a rare hybrid eclipse last November in which parts of the earth saw a total eclipse and part saw an annular eclipse.
An annular eclipse happens when the earth sun and moon are in a direct line and the sun appears in the skies as a ring. The Southern Hemisphere will be treated to one of those April 29.
Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to watch without eye protection.
"The moon is the brightest thing in the night sky, but it’s not nearly as bright as the sun," Domogal-Goldman said. "All you need to do is go out find the moon. ... If you have binoculars, that would be great. But you don’t need anything to protect your eyes. The moon is not bright enough to damage them."
Tuesday's event is the first in a "tetrad" of four total lunar eclipses that will be visible from most of North America. The others will happen on Oct. 8, next April 4 and next Sept. 28.
If the weather prevents the viewing of this one in the Bay area, another great opportunity will come Oct. 8.