Inside the observatory on Saint Vincent College's campus is a large telescope that students use for different projects -- and to get a closer look at the sky. It's a little bigger than your average telescope. That will come in handy overnight Thursday into Friday morning when a total lunar eclipse will be visible in the night sky.
"With this telescope, you'll be easily able to see craters, canyons, mountains on the moon that you wouldn't be able to see by looking at it with your eyes alone," said Dr. Dan Vanden Berk, Physics Professor at Saint Vincent College.
Lunar eclipses are common, happening a few times a year across the world. This is the first total lunar eclipse in North America since 2022. But this one is different.
The ones where the moon goes very deeply into the earth's shadow and gets that really dark reddish-brown color, those are more rare," Vanden Berk said.
That dark reddish-brown color is why some call it a "blood moon" lunar eclipse. Vanden Berk said it all has to do with how the sun shines through the earth's atmosphere.
"Although the moon is fully in the earth's shadow, some of the sun's light passes through the earth's atmosphere, it scatters by our atmosphere and the light that emerges is a very reddish, brownish color, and that light will reflect off the moon and that's how we can see the moon," he said.
Unlike last year's solar eclipse, you don't need any special glasses to watch this eclipse. You can just look up at the moon from your own backyard. But if you want to look through a telescope and get a closer look, Saint Vincent College is throwing an eclipse viewing party.
You can head to the campus from 2 a.m. until 4 a.m. Friday. That's the time frame when totality will be at its peak.
The partial eclipse will start a few hours before then.
"Aside from the main observatory telescope, we will have some other telescopes set up outside of the observatory and in front of the science pavilion on campus, so you can come by and there will be plenty of opportunities to look through a number of telescopes," Vanden Berk said.
You might have to stay up late or wake up early, but Vanden Berk said it'll be worth it.
"If you get a chance, this is a really good one to see," he said.