Total lunar eclipse seen before dawn over Front Range

The skies above the Front Range were graced by a crimson moon just before dawn this morning.

Dubbed the Super Flower Blood Moon, the astronomical event is a rare total eclipse of a full moon at its closest orbit to earth. This was the first total lunar eclipse in nearly two and a half years.

A total lunar eclipse only occurs when a full moon is captured in the Earth’s shadow opposite the Sun. This casts the moon with a red hue as it catches the reflection of sunrise and sunset, earning it the moniker of a blood moon. 

According to NASA, when the moon passes closest to the Earth, in its elliptical orbit, while also full it appears larger and brighter in the sky, making it a supermoon. The Old Farmer’s Almanac indicates that the full moon in May is traditionally called a Flower Moon due to spring blooms across the country.

The eclipse itself was a brief 15 minutes in totality, from 5:11 a.m. until 5:26 a.m. Early morning light and hazy clouds over the front range obscured most of the total eclipse as viewed from Longmont.

The total eclipse was only visible from western North America, southern and far-western South America, the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand, Australia and parts of Southeast Asia, according to NASA.

For curious readers that didn’t brave the pre-dawn air to see the eclipse in person, NASA has a series of timelapse videos and animations of the astronomical event online.