ST. LOUIS — We are keeping a close eye on the skies over the next few days ahead of a total lunar eclipse on Tuesday morning. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes through the Earth's shadow. This will be visible to us in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday as the moon sets.
We'll start to see a hint of a shadow on the moon after 2 a.m. as the moon enters Earth's penumbra. Then as the Earth starts to enter the umbra after 3:09 a.m., the Earth will begin to appear slightly red before it's darkest shade of red begins at 4:16 a.m. and ends at 5:41 a.m.
If you don't get up quite early enough, you will miss out on the red shading and may only see a darker shadow as the moon sets and the penumbral eclipse ends just before 8 a.m.
But will the weather cooperate? That's the big question, especially if you're planning on setting an alarm to get up and see this eclipse. At this point, I don't see it being fully overcast, but there will be clouds in the area.
I've posted a look at future cloud cover about, and I think there's a possibility for a few breaks for us during peak viewing time. Stay tuned! I will continue to update this forecast and let you know whether it's worthy of setting an alarm.
At this point, I expect it to be a bit clearer during the beginning of the eclipse. When it turns red as it enters Earth's umbra may coincide with the cloudiest portion of the morning. Hopefully this changes, but I don't see any clear signal that this won't be visible the entire early morning just yet.
I'm hopeful that we can get rid of the cloud cover, because the timing of this eclipse provides a unique opportunity for us in the St. Louis and Bi-State area.
The International Space Station is expected to pass right over the eclipsed moon!
The expected time frame for this to occur will be somewhere between 5:55 a.m. and 5:58 a.m. with roughly a three-minute duration. You should be able to see this with the naked eye, but I'm sure those with professional cameras and lenses can get some really cool photos.
We'll keep you posted on any updates to this, and the weather and we hope to be able to enjoy this celestial event together on Tuesday morning.
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