It will be cold and very early but it looks like we're going to get a chance to see something that hasn't happened since Prussia became an empire.

This celestial warning is brought to you by one of the best local social media follows on Twitter, Joey Marino. If you're not following Joey on social media, you're missing out. He keeps us plugged in every morning and will occasionally drop some cool stories like this upcoming lunar eclipse. You will have to put up with a bunch of posts about Kansas City football, but that's mostly on the weekends.

Back to the eclipse.

You'll either have to stay up really late Thursday night or get up early on Friday to catch this one. It will also be very cold out so plan accordingly. The eclipse will begin at 1:15AM and max out a little after 3AM. The entire show will last about three and a half hours and concludes at 445AM.

This chart lays out the time of everything very clearly.

timeanddate.com
timeanddate.com
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Some notes about that chart. The arrows tell you where to look in the sky for the eclipse. This shouldn't be hard, considering that there's only one moon in the sky and we can usually find it. But those arrows point you where to look. The first arrow is the direction, north, south, east, or west, and the second arrow shows how high in the sky to look. So at 3:02 AM when the eclipse is at its fullest, it will be in the western sky, about 40 degrees above the horizon.

You'll also notice some new words when you start reading about eclipses. Words like penumbral and umbral shadow. It's not very complex and easy to understand when you watch this video.

You are now set to explain to your friends and family what's going on in the sky this early Friday morning. Now you just have to remember to set that alarm and go out and see it.

The weather is supposed to be clear. If you miss this one, the next lunar eclipse visible in Rockford won't be until May 15th of 2022.

And the next solar eclipse in Rockford? Not until October 14th of 2023.

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