Lunar eclipses always happen at ridiculous hours but you don鈥檛 have to pull an all-nighter to enjoy one! Dean shares tips for making the most out of the 2025 Lunar Eclipse happening late on the night of March 13th into the early hours of March 14th.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Looking Up is transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Dean Regas: Clouds. I hate clouds. Well, I hate them, especially when there's like a rare astronomical event coming up and the clouds just kind of hang around and don't go away. There is a time honored tradition of astronomers shaking their fists at a cloudy sky and yelling William Shatner like, CLOUDS!
Sometimes it works. Other times you just have to. Pack up the telescope and hit the road to find clear skies. From the studios of 海角社区. I'm your host, Dean Regas, and this is Looking Up, a show that takes you deep into the cosmos or just to the telescope in your backyard to learn more about what makes this amazing universe of ours so great.
Today, I'm going to tell you all about the moon. Lunar eclipses and how to get the most out of this awesome astronomical event. I don't know what it is about eclipses and astronomers. They just get kind of wrapped up in this thing. And it's, it's something to do with the rarity. It's something to do of the precision.
And it's also something that we do because. Do we see it on the calendar and we mark it on the calendar and we know what we're going to do on those days as they come. And, you know, of course we had that amazing, incredible total solar eclipse back in 2024 and lunar eclipses are awesome as well. Now they can't hold the candle to a total solar eclipse, but a total lunar eclipse is.
It's just, it's, uh, it's a little more chill, I guess we would say, because with the total solar eclipse, it all happens, the big show happens in a matter of minutes. With a lunar eclipse, it takes hours and hours for this to happen, so you can kind of like hang out and watch it.
[Archival Audio]: About twice a year, over the course of a few hours, the full moon sports a decidedly different look. What causes this sudden change?
Dean Regas: And so, with this one that's coming up, we have one that's going to be on the night of March 13th into the morning hours of March 14th of 2025, it's going to be pretty cool because it's going to be visible from all around the United States. So, the way that I like to look at these lunar eclipses, there's two main.
Parts of it that you really gotta see for me the it really kicks off when you can just barely see the shadow Of the earth touching the moon because this is what's happening with a lunar eclipse You have the sun on one side the moon on the other side and the earth exactly in the middle So the shadow of the earth gets cast onto the moon itself.
And when you see that that's called first contact That is the part which always gets me excited because I've been waiting all these years to see it and then it starts so it's Like the precision. I love it and so in that partial stages where the shadow will slowly creep and cover over more of the moon's light You can watch that progress and it usually takes about an hour to go from the partial stage to totality so That's a long time to kill.
You just kind of go inside for a little bit but then go back out for totality. And when totality happens, the moon is completely in the shadow of the earth, and it turns this eerie orange-ish reddish color. People like to call it the blood moon. I'm not a big fan of that term, but since it's catchy and people like it, I guess we'll do it.
So, it just turns this eerie red color. And what's happening is light is still getting to it. The earth is blocking out the sun, but we have an atmosphere on earth. So, the sunlight comes through our atmosphere, bends, and refracts, shifts over to the reddish side and bathes the moon in this eerie red light.
And that is what makes it so cool. Now, when you're watching totality, totality can last for, you know, a minute to even an hour or so, but I think that part is so cool to see because it changes from minute to minute, like you look at it and you see it has this one certain color, it might look like a copper penny or something like that.
And then you turn away and you look back again, it's a totally different shade. And we have no idea what color the moon will turn during total lunar eclipses. It all depends on what's going on in the atmosphere and where you're viewing from and your conditions. But each time you see it; it is so cool.
All right. So, what's the plan for the next total lunar eclipse is coming up really, really fast. It's going to be on the night of March 13th into the morning of March 14th. And that's the big thing is that in some websites, it's going to say March 14th. Don't look for it on the night of March 14th, because it'll be over.
It's like March 13th after midnight. So that means March 14th. Um, yeah, anyway, but now, you know. March 13th is the date you want to circle really. And just stay up late. And what's really cool about this is that unlike other astronomical events, everybody sees this at the exact same time. So anywhere in the United States.
You're going to start to see the eclipse begin at the same time. So, you can kind of connect with other people. You can be on the phone with somebody and be like, Hey, you seeing this, you seeing this, and you can watch the same moon together. I love it. So, then the lunar eclipse will progress from partial stages to totality.
That will be at 2 26 AM and last all the way to 3 31 AM. So, I know this is an early morning one. I know. Why can't it be like on a. Saturday night at like 8 PM or something like that. But this one is going to be pretty early, but the totality lasts for more than an hour. So, you don't have to like stay outside for the whole hour but still makes it kind of nice.
So, after totality, then the shadow will slowly wipe away and you'll just have a partial lunar eclipse and that will end. Where the moon turns back to its normal shade at 4 47 AM. I know that is a lot. So just to sum up best part when it starts 1 0 9 AM Eastern totality, 2 26 to 3 31. After that, I go to sleep.
Ah, I don't know. I'll probably stay up and watch the whole thing too, because the next one, the next total lunar eclipse, there'll be visible in the United States next March, March 3rd, 2026, but come on, don't miss this one. Well, I've now seen 22 lunar eclipses in my days. Uh, some were just partial eclipses, but most were total.
And each one was so unique. Uh, most of them I observed from Cincinnati, since you don't really have to be in exactly the right place at the exact right time, like you do a solar eclipses. But I've seen a lot of lunar eclipses from some different places like Socorro, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona, two of them from the Grand Canyon, one from Lake Tahoe and another from Reno, Nevada.
So, it's pretty cool to see these things. That sounds exotic and all, but I've also seen lunar eclipses from less exotic places like a, um, Chuck E. Cheese parking lot and Dayton. And, um, also I've seen one from a Cracker Barrel parking lot in Illinois, but the farthest. I traveled for a lunar eclipse on January 31st, 2018.
[Archival Audio]: What makes today's lunar eclipse so special from any other? Okay, so today we're experiencing the third in a series of super moons. And it's also the second full moon of the month, which makes it a blue moon. The moon is passing into the Earth's shadow. That makes it a total lunar eclipse.
Dean Regas: And the deal with this lunar eclipse in 2018 was the farther west you were in the United States, the more of the eclipse you were able to see.
So, Arizona was definitely a tempting site. California sounds pretty good. Or was January. Why not go even farther west?
Hawaii, of course. And so, I went to Volcanoes National Park on the big island of Hawaii. And it was just incredible because not only was it so dark out there, not only were the stars shining so brightly and also from a different latitude so they're at different angles, you could see southern stars I'd never seen before, but I got to see the eclipse from the visitor center.
Volcanoes National Park with lava erupting behind it.
It was so cool. And so, this eruption is going on behind this while the eclipse is turning that eerie blood red color. I'll never forget that one. That's for sure. Because this was also just a few months before a really powerful volcanic eruption spread across the park wiping out that visitor center. So, I'm never going to be able to recreate that again.
I'm going to remember a lunar eclipse with a volcanic eruption, uh, for the rest of my life. And each one of these looks different. Each one of my 22 lunar eclipses has a memory with it.
And so, what's going to happen, March 13th, 2025, where am I going to watch it? What am I going to see? And what am I going to remember? And the sun, earth, and moon align perfectly. And I hope you see it too.
Looking up with Dean Regas is a production of 海角社区. Kevin Reynolds and I created the podcast in 2017. Ella Rowen and Marshall Verbsky produce and edit our show. Jenell Walton is our vice president of content. And Ronny Salerno is our digital platforms manager. Our social media coordinator is Hannah McFarland.
Our theme song is Possible Light by Ziv Moran. And our cover art is by Nicole Tiffany. I'm Dean Regas and I keep looking up.
