Before dawn on Wednesday May 26th the moon will dip into the Earth’s shadow, marking the start of a total lunar eclipse. The moon will enter the Earth’s outer penumbra shadow at 3:47am. During this phase it’ll be difficult to notice anything.

After 4am, you should begin to see some shading on the moon’s SE (bottom left) side. The shading will darken and spread across the moon until the partial phase begins at 4:44am. At that time the moon will enter the dark core of earth’s shadow.

Unfortunately, the moon will set in the partial phase for Arkansas around 6am, a mere 10 minutes before totality occurs. However, totality marks the time when the moon is exactly opposite the sun. Thus as the moon goes down, look to the east to watch the sun come up.

This is also the closest full moon of the year, making this a supermoon, and it is known as the Flower Moon.

Our next lunar eclipse will also be an early morning eclipse, however, we’ll be able to see the full eclipse.