On the night of Wednesday, Sept. 8, the moon will be in an eclipse and, for half the world, will appear to be red.
According to NBC News, western North America, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific will have the best view of the "Blood Moon" total lunar eclipse. The best time to look to the skies will be from 6:25 a.m. to 7:25 a.m. ET Wednesday morning.
The eclipse will start at 4:15 a.m. ET when the moon starts to slip into the Earth's shadow, known as the "penumbra." Astronomers call this eclipse in particular a "blood moon" because the sun's rays will be re-directed just enough to hit the moon and give it a reddish look. If the atmospheric conditions are right, the moon's shade will be a deep red, earning the "blood moon" nickname.
"It's a phenomenon that's barely possible," Michael Zeiler, a curator for Eclipse-Maps.com, told NBC News. "Besides being in the right location, you have to have the right conditions. Those right conditions require that you be at a high point, with an excellent view toward the horizon to the east and the west, and have transparent sky conditions to see both the sun and the moon."
NASA will begin its live webcast on its website at 3 a.m. ET and Slooh.com will air its own beginning at 5 a.m. ET.
An astronomer for SpaceWeather.com, Tony Phillips described what the blood moon total lunar eclipse would look like from the lunar surface. According to Reuters, Wednesday's eclipse is the second of four in a series that will last through Sept. 28. 2015.
"Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is under way. You might expect Earth to be utterly dark, but... the rim of the planet is on fire," he wrote for NASA. "You're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all at once."
