Artistic impression of the appearance of the eclipsed Moon as it becomes visible during twilight.

Upcoming events in the night sky Joe Cali April sees two interesting transient eclipse type events both occuring mid-month. On Tuesday April 15th, 2014, eastern Australia will see the last half of a total lunar eclipse occuring as the Moon rises at sunset. The event will only become visible as twilight causes considerable darkening of the night sky. Two days later at 4am on the morning of Thursday Venus will occult (pass in front of) the relatively bright start Lambda Aquarii (magnitude 3.7). This is not visible to the naked eye or  binoculars. The disappearance will be lost in the bright glare of the Venutian atmosphere but the reappearance should be relatively easy in any small decent quality telescope. Next Month on May 14, Saturn will be occulted by the Moon.   Total lunar eclipse on April 15   On Tuesday April 15 a total lunar eclipse will be visible during and after evening twilight.  A lunar eclipse occurs at certain full moons when the Moon passage through the Earth's orbital plane corresponds exactly at full moon. Being full moon, the Moon rises as the sun sets. Totality is in progress as the Moon rises. A totally eclipsed moon will not be visible at sunset but as twilight sets in, the coppery red moon will progressively become more visible against the deep blue sky on the eastern horizon. Whilst not ideal for astronomical observations, eclipses like this are aesthetically beautiful to watch as the coppery Moon magically appears out of the darkening twilight sky.  Lunar eclipses vary in brightness. This is usually related to how deep into the umbra the Moon passes during the eclipse.  As can be seen in the umbral passage diagram below, the limb of the moon does not go very deep into the umbra. At a guess, the brighter limb of the totally eclipsed Moon will begin to show up around the time of civil twilight.

During this eclipse, the further east you are, the more you'll see. Observers in NZ will see a partially eclipsed Moon rising and all of totality. The east coast of Australia sees the Moon rise totally eclipsed but much of totality is lost in twilight. Central Australia sees the egress partial eclipse and the Western Australian coast sees nothing.