Watch the skies: ‘Flower’ supermoon and total lunar eclipse coming this week

By Aaron Humes: Lovers of the night sky will be able to catch two related and rare occurrences: a “super” full moon and a total lunar eclipse, according to CNN.

Next Wednesday morning, May 26, the moon will be at its brightest and largest as it comes close to the Earth as part of the first total lunar eclipse since January 2019, according to EarthSky. It will take the moon just over three hours to cross through the Earth’s shadow, but the actual lunar eclipse will last under 15 minutes.

During the eclipse, the moon will have a reddish hue from the sunlight filtering through the Earth’s atmosphere, according to NASA, so you can also refer to this month’s event as a “blood moon.”

In Belize City, the full eclipse begins around 5:11 a.m. in the morning and will last until after the moon sets about 11 minutes later. We will not be able to see the full eclipse in our area, but much of the Caribbean and North America will.

The full moon is called the “flower” moon in May because it’s when flowers blossom across North America, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Typical of a normal year, 2021 has 12 full moons. (There were 13 full moons last year, two of which were in October.)

This is the first of two lunar eclipses and two solar eclipses this year, three of which will be visible in North America. Wednesday’s lunar eclipse will be followed by an annular (partial) solar eclipse on June 10, while a partial lunar eclipse happens on Garifuna Settlement Day on November 19 followed by a total solar eclipse visible mostly in the Southern Hemisphere on December 4.

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