Did you know that next Monday (April 14th, 2014) North and South America will experience their first Total Lunar Eclipse since June 2011?

An eclipse is divided into stages beginning with the moon’s entry into Earth’s lighter penumbral shadow. Most of us won’t notice any shading at all until about a half hour in, when the moon is deep enough inside to reveal a subtle darkening along its eastern edge. The table below lists the times for each stage of the eclipse across the four time zones:

Eclipse Events
.........................................EDT….......CDT….........MDT…......PDT
Penumbra visible…........1:20a….......12:20a….....11:20p…..10:20p
Partial eclipse begins…..1:58a….......12:58a….....11:58p…..10:58p
Total eclipse begins…..3:07a….........2:07a….......1:07a…..12:07a
Mid-eclipse…...................3:46a….........2:46a…......1:46a…....12:46a
Total eclipse ends…....4:25a….........3:25a…........2:25a…....1:25a
Partial eclipse ends…....5:33a….........4:33a…........3:33a….....2:33a
Penumbra visible…........——–............5:10a…........4:10a…....3:10a

According to Astro Bob (scroll down past the Mars article to the April 7th posting), we should get three more six months apart.

Also, Mars will be that very bright pinkish light in the southeast sky at around 1730PDT/1830MDT/ 1930CDT/2030EDT tonight, the closest it’s been since 2007 (Remember that? Huge red planet almost as big as the moon? Well, not this time.) and the brightest it’s been since 2012. It’s in Virgo for those of you who know their skies (read gailcalled).