' One of an occasional series to keep 

 you looking up, with information 

 from the U.S. Naval Observatory. 



Set your clock for 4:50 tomorrow 

 morning and gaze westward if you 

 want to catch a total lunar eclipse 

 that astronomers predict will be 

 spectacularly colorful (If you're 

 tempted to sleep through it, be 

 aware that the next TLE won't be 

 visible here until 1989.) The lunar 

 light show begins at 4:50 a.m. EST 

 when the moon will begin to enter 

 full shadow. "Totality"~as the sci- 

 entists say— will begin at 5:58 EST 

 and will last until 6:59 EST. The 

 moon will leave the shadow of the 

 Earth at 8:07 a.m., but since it will 

 set here at 7:35 a.m. EST, the final 

 stages won't be visible in this area. 



The moon never completely dis- 

 appears during a TLE because the 

 sun's rays bend and refract as they 

 pass through the Earth's atmos- 

 phere. This causes the moon to ap- 

 pear variously colored. The colors 

 could be particularly spectacular this 

 year, as the result of volcanic ash in 

 the atmosphere, courtesy of Mount 

 St. Helens in Washington State, El 

 Chichon in Mexico and perhaps 

 Galuggung in Indonesia. 



