total lunar eclipse tomorrow

May 2003 Lunar Eclipse Mosaic Final

my dad would pull me out of bed in the middle of the night for meteor showers and other astrological events (i suppose technically a meteor shower isn't astrological)... i remember one time he pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night in winter it was FREEZING and we drove somewhere out of the city to watch a big meteor shower.. i don't remember seeing any shooting stars and i think at the time i would have greatly preferred to have stayed asleep... but it did instill a love of astronomy and space that i don't think i realized until Elias was old enough for me to do the same to him.

Last year there was a BIG meteor shower and we stayed up really late until it started, went to a clearing and laid out in the grass for an hour or so counting all the shooting stars.  I think I counted 20+ that night!  Eli counted about five or so...  For the next month he told everyone he saw about meteor showers, what they are, how cool they are, how many he counted, etc.

There was a smaller one a couple months back and I think i spotted like six, elias spotted three.  He was equally excited even though it was cold and not as impressive.

Tomorrow night is a full lunar eclipse and Elias is all excited again.  We just got done watching a bunch of youtube videos of solar and lunar eclipses.  I explained how incredibly lucky we are to have everything positioned JUST right to have eclipses at all!

If you're on the east coast, the lunar eclipse will be right at moon rise tomorrow around 5p in the north-east sky.  Lunar eclipses are pretty slow moving and certainly not as exciting as solar eclipses... but still cool to see the moon turn dark red!  West Coast?  You're out of luck but you're going to have a GREAT one in late August.

http://njnightsky.com/nuke/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=672