Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Note:  Being a radio program, I do have to repeat the eclipse timings a couple of times. 

Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 7th.  The sun will rise at 7:47.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 24 minutes, setting at 7:12.   The moon, 1 day before full, will set at 7:56 tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow’s Total Lunar Eclipse will be visible without losing too much sleep.  Just set the alarm clock so you’ll be ready to view the start of the eclipse at 5:15 a.m.  That’s when the partial phase starts when the upper left edge of the moon enters the Earth’s inner shadow called the umbra.  The total phase or totality starts at 6:25 with morning twilight just beginning.  The middle of the eclipse will occur at 6:54.  Totality will end at 7:24 when twilight will be bright.  The ending partial phase will not be completely visible from northern Michigan.  From the Dakotas and westward the entire ending partial phase will be visible.  Amazingly, next year we will have two more total lunar eclipses in the United States, April 4th and September 28th.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Click on the image above to display or download a more detailed Adobe Acrobat (PDF) image showing more information about the eclipse.  The time shown will be Universal Time (UT).  Subtract 4 hours for EDT, 5 hours for CDT,  etc.

In the Grand Traverse area there are two locations the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS) will be set up to view the eclipse if it is clear enough.  Opens at 5 a.m.

• Northwestern Michigan College’s Joseph H. Rogers Observatory.  located south of Traverse City on Birmley Road, between Garfield and Keystone roads.  (One road south of Hammond)
• Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore at Platte River Point.  It’s in several miles from the Platte River Campground off M22 on Lake Michigan Rd.  Park in the big parking lot to the left.  The GTAS will have their scopes in the small parking lot to the right.

If it’s cloudy, there is a place to view the lunar eclipse on the Internet from Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.  There will probably be more locations.  I’ll put them up if and when I find them.  Last eclipse, it was cloudy here, so I watched the eclipse Livestream from Griffith Observatory.  They also have a running commentary and answer your questions.  Though it still wasn’t as good as seeing it with your own eyeballs.  Videos cannot duplicate the range of brightness and color that can be seen with your own eyes.