Total lunar eclipse photo from space.com

Come join us at Loines Observatory, 59 Milk Street, for a FREE public viewing of the Total Lunar Eclipse.  The show will begin this Sunday evening, 8PM to 1AM, with the most interesting totality happening between 10PM and 11PM.  Bring your warm clothes, a jug of hot chocolate, and your enthusiasm -- this is the last of this tetrad of Lunar Eclipses, which is very rare. 

Total lunar eclipses are rare -- only about one in three lunar eclipses are total.  Within the span of a decade, only four to five total eclipses can be seen from Earth.    Lunar eclipses usually do not occur in any specific order. However, every once in a while, four total lunar eclipses happen in a row. This is called a lunar tetrad. This tetrad has 4 Total Lunar eclipses in eighteen months.   There are at least six full Moons between two total lunar eclipses in a tetrad.  Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli calculated that the occurrence of such
tetrads varies over centuries. Some 300 year intervals have several lunar tetrads, while other 300 year intervals do not have any.  There are no Tetrads visible from North America before 2050.

Here is a short video released by NASA to

get you excited!