Moon puts on a show Saturday

If you want the best view of Saturday’s twilight lunar eclipse, find a good view of the eastern horizon and be in place by 6 p.m.

The full moon will be in eclipse when it rises at 6:01 p.m. Saturday evening. Skies are forecast to be partly cloudy, according to the National Weather Service.

The elevator to Laws Observatory is broken, but that won’t stop members of the Central Missouri Astronomical Association from observing the first lunar eclipse at sunset in about 11 years from the roof of MU’s Physics Building.

“We’re going to watch the last part of the eclipse as it rises into the east,” Val Germann, association president, said. “You can see this anywhere, but we’ll be out on the roof with large binoculars.”

The observatory will be open to the public from 5:30 to 8 p.m. for the eclipse. Germann and other members of the association will have an animation of an eclipse inside the observatory and high-powered binoculars set up on tripods for observers.

Viewing the eclipse from the roof will provide an unobstructed view of the eastern horizon, and, following the eclipse, the telescope in the observatory will be opened to view Saturn and the craters of the moon. Visitors should be prepared to climb the stairs to the fifth floor.

“It’ll be fun the whole time,” Germann said. “It will be a real spectacle.”

Germann said the tail end of the eclipse is the most interesting because various craters can be seen as the moon emerges from the Earth’s shadow.

If the skies are clear, the eclipse should reveal a visual phenomenon known as the Belt of Venus just after moonrise. The belt, which is the Earth’s shadow projected into the atmosphere, looks like a dark band with a pinkish color and can be seen only because of pollution in the atmosphere, Germann said. It will rise from the horizon starting about 10 minutes after sunset.

Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory said the last time a lunar eclipse occurred at sunset over North America was April 4, 1996. The next twilight eclipse won’t occur until Dec. 10, 2011. The last total lunar eclipse in North America was in October 2004, according to NASA’s Web site.

Not all views of the eclipse will be through a scientific lens. The moon is a central part of the Wiccan religion and will be celebrated Saturday night, said Rose Wise, the high priestess and administrator of the Ozark Avalon Church of Nature in Moniteau County. The church is planning to hold a potluck dinner before its ritual of circle to honor the moon.

“We see the eclipse of the moon as being a time for introspection and intuition, and that’s going to be the theme of our circle,” Wise said. “It’s a pretty auspicious occasion,” Wise said.