Last week, I blogged about the total eclipse of the sun that will sweep across America in ten years. Well, it may be a lot less dramatic and a lot more common, but in just over 24 hours, we’ll be treated to a total eclipse of the moon!

The partial eclipse begins Tuesday morning at 4:51 AM Eastern time (that’s 1:51 Pacific), and totality starts at 5:52 EDT (2:52 PDT). West of the Rockies, the entire eclipse is visible. In the rest of the country, the moon sets at some point during the eclipse — the further east you are, the less of the eclipse you get to see. But everybody in the U.S. gets to see at least part of it. Here’s a map.

Here in Knoxville, we get to see most of the “good part,” when the moon is completely inside the Earth’s umbra, though the sky will be getting lighter toward the end. Totality, as I said, begins at 5:52 AM EDT, and mid-totality is at 6:37. Sunrise is at 7:04, and the moon sets at 7:09. (The closeness in time of sunrise and moonset is no coincidence. In order for an eclipse to occur, the Sun and Moon must be directly opposite each other from the Earth’s perspective, and the timing of their rendezvous with their respective horizons shows that that’s the case.)

The Smoky Mountain Astronomical Society is having an eclipse party at Blount County Library starting at 4:00 AM (seven minutes after the beginning of the subtle penumbral phase, and 51 minutes before first contact with the umbra). I’m planning to go — and as an added bonus, I’m hoping to see my first Iridum flare at 6:11 AM, directly in between the Big Dipper’s “pointer stars” and Polaris. After the jump, a map of where the flare should appear in the northern sky: