Shortly before sunrise Saturday morning, several people were at the Loveland High School rear parking lot photographing or just watching the shortest total lunar eclipse of the century. The full moon was not quite half-covered by the earthās shadow when it finally dipped below the horizon about 7:49 AM, and it did not turn the lovely shade of celestial red or the “blood moon” that western U.S. citizens were expected to witness whenĀ the shadow left the moonās surface.
This eclipse marks the third in a series of four lunar eclipses in a row, known as a “tetradā, according to NASA. “The first in the series occurred on April 15, 2014, with the second in the tetrad of eclipses in September of 2014, and the final will be September 28, 2015.”