All you need to know about tonight’s lunar eclipse

Tonight is the first of four lunar eclipses in a tetrad of eclipses. The moon with turn a redish-orange colour as the result of perfect alignment of the moon, sun and earth. National Geographic explains that the moon’s red colouring is due to sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere and refracting to the red end of the spectrum.

The tetrad does not occur quickly, and the subsequent lunar eclipses won’t form until the 8th October 2014, 8th April 2015 and the 28th September 2015.

Lunar eclipses are nicknamed “the blood moon” due to their colour and are safe to view unlike the similar solar ecplipse in which the light is intensified and eyesight can be damaged by looking at it.

The Sydney Observatory has provided guidelines of the best viewing times for each state, however Perth residents will miss out on viewing it.

They are as follows:

Adelaide: Moon rises at 5.48pm; eclipse ends at 7.03pm

Brisbane: Moon rises at 5.27pm; eclipse ends at 7.33pm

Darwin: Moon rises at 6.41pm; eclipse ends at 7.33pm

Hobart: Moon rises at 5.33pm; eclipse ends at 7.33pm.

Melbourne: Moon rises at 5.49pm; eclipse ends at 7.33pm

Sydney: Moon rises at 5.28pm; eclipse ends at 7.33pm

So make sure you’re outside and watching between these times so you don’t miss out!

The National Geographic also recommends that for those hoping to photograph the event, use a “digital camera that you can mount on a tripod and set with a remote timer. Include a foreground object like a house, trees, or hills to add perspective to your shots. And try using multiple exposure lengths, from a fraction of a second to a few seconds long.”

As an idea to what you might see tonight, here is a time-lapse from Slooh of the June 15th lunar eclipse in 2011.