What to know about Thursday’s Blood Moon in Central Pennsylvania

ALTOONA, Pa. (WTAJ) — Central Pennsylvania is expecting a “Blood Moon” Thursday night into the early morning hours Friday.

A total lunar eclipse will stretch across Central Pennsylvania, turning the moon red for everyone on the nighttime side of the earth, which is how this phenomena earned the name of “Blood Moon”.

“The only light that can reach it is first filtered through earth’s atmosphere and as it is, all the different wavelengths of color are sucked out except the red wavelengths. And so that’s the only part that can actually hit the moon, making it the blood moon,” said Jim Krug, Planetarium Director of the Neil Armstrong Planetarium at the Altoona Area School District.

Lunar eclipses are not entirely rare, but sky viewers are especially excited about this lunar eclipse. For the first time in a while, this lunar eclipse will happen in the middle of the night, putting the moon high in the sky for viewing.

“The nice thing is lunar eclipses are very generous eclipses. Unlike a solar eclipse, where only people on very narrow pathways on the Earth can see it, and only for a couple of seconds to maybe a minute, everybody on the nighttime side of Earth can see it,” Krug said.

While totality will be from about 2:30 to 3:30 Friday morning, Krug said not to worry if you sleep through it. The eclipse will span from just before midnight until about 5:30 in the morning.

To view the eclipse, all you need is your naked eye. Krug said that while the moon isn’t known to hurt your eyes, looking at a full moon through binoculars or a telescope could make your eye hurt after a period of time.

Krug hopes the lunar eclipse serves as a reminder for everyone to take a moment and enjoy all the wonders the world has to offer: “We get so busy in our modern society, we don’t look up anymore like our ancestors. We’re just always looking down. Events like this kind of cause us to take a break. They give us pause, and they remind us that we are a part of a much, much greater cosmos out there.”