3 ways this Sunday's lunar eclipse is unusual

A total lunar eclipse will be visible across North America on Sunday evening. For details on why this is occurring and the best time to view it here in Arizona, check out this article by Erin Jordan.

This weekend's eclipse will be unusual in a few ways:

-It is the last of 4 consecutive total lunar eclipses (April 15 and October 8 in 2014; April 4 and September 27 this year).

-It will be the final total lunar eclipse visible from anywhere in the world until January 31, 2018.

-It occurs almost exactly when the Earth and moon will be closest to each other this year (221,753 miles from center to center). This will cause the lunar disk to appear 13% larger than it was during the lunar eclipse in April of this year.

Sky and Telescope will be producing a professional HD webcast of the entire event, live from 6:00 pm until 9:30 pm PDT. You can watch that live on Sunday evening by clicking here.

The webcast will provide uninterrupted video of the eclipse. However, audio commentary will include discussions with several lunar experts scheduled at the following times:

* 6:00 p.m. MST — Alan MacRobert, a veteran S&T Senior Editor who's scrutinized the Moon through all kinds of telescopes
* 6:30 p.m. MST — Sean Walker, S&T's Equipment Editor and a veteran astrophotographer who knows the best ways to capture the eclipse
* 7:00 p.m. MST — Maria Zuber, MIT geophysicist, lead scientist for NASA's GRAIL mission, and an expert on the lunar interior
* 7:30 p.m. MST — Kelly Beatty and Alan MacRobert will review eclipse geometry and the Moon's appearance during totality
* 8:00 p.m. MST — Andrew Chaikin, space historian and author of "A Man on the Moon," which details the Apollo landings in the astronauts' own words
* 8:30 p.m. MST — Charles Wood, an expert in lunar geology and author of S&T's Exploring the Moon column
* 9:00 p.m. MST — Erich Karkoschka, a University of Arizona planetary scientist whose research explains why Earth's shadow is slightly larger than the planet itself (tentative)