The right alignment

So we know that the sun, earth and moon will in the right alignment in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to produce a lunar eclipse. As a scientist, I always take notice when the night sky will provide us with an eclipse, meteor shower, comet, or other astronomical phenomenon. Of course, "take notice" doesn't necessarily mean "actually get out of bed and watch". After all, the heavens have an annoying tendency to showcase their wonders at an incredibly inconvenient hour. This week's eclipse, for example, will begin around 1:33AM EST, will reach totality at 2:41AM, and last for 72 minutes thereafter, with the deepest shadow at 3:17AM. My primary scientific interest lie in the forests, deserts, lakes, streams, and especially the oceans. For all of its vastness and mystery, the cosmos is at best a peripheral interest, and generally one that is not strong enough to lure from a warm bed at a late hour on a cold night...

However, the good people as NASA have provided a particularly compelling description of what the moon and the landscape it illuminates at night will look like during this eclipse (the link is also the source of the eclipse timeline recounted above). And I have to say it sounds pretty cool! The deep amber color that overtakes the moon and bathes the land has given the nickname "blood moon" to a lunar eclipse, and the phenomenon has given rise to numerous myths and legends across the globe, and at least one instance of cross-cultural deception.

With so much rare beauty possible, and so much science, history and legend tied to the event, I foresee setting my alarm to 2:45AM or so before bed on Monday night. Of course, there is one other alignment that will be an important determinant of whether my sleep is interrupted or not: the weather. Snow showers are forecasted for Monday night and Tuesday morning amidst cloudy skies. If those come and go before the eclipse, the land might be covered in a new white blanket ready to absorb the red hues. Or, the whole shebang could be obscured from view by clouds and flurries. It seems that some very subtle differences in weather patterns could be the difference between a rare night outside and a good night's sleep...