Total lunar eclipse creates Blood Moon, but clouds make it hard to see on Long Island

A total lunar eclipse overnight cast the moon over North and South American awash in red — although it was hard to see on Long Island due to the clouds and overcast skies.

“It was hard to see, if you could see it at all,” Matthew Wunsch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said.

The sun, Earth and moon aligned in this order, and there's a total lunar eclipse when the whole moon slips into the umbra, the earth’s innermost shadow. When the Earth's shadow covers the moon's face, it leads to it shining red.

“Imagine if you were standing on the moon, you basically would be seeing all of earth’s sunrises and sunsets at the same time,” Wunsch said.

Frederick Walter, a Stony Brook University astronomy professor, told Newsday earlier this week that the eclipse was to begin around 11:57 p.m. Thursday as the moon went through the center of Earth’s outer shadow.

By 1 a.m. the moon was to enter the umbra, and viewers could see a "crescent eating into the moon," Walter said, assuming the clouds didn’t provide cover.

And around 2:30 a.m., when the moon is right in line with the planet, the eclipse had full totality, peaking around 3 o’clock and lasting until around 3:30 a.m.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.