Shadow Moon, photo by Michael Seabrook
For as long as we know, celestial signs have been read to signify calamity and change, and apparently the total lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of April 15, 2014 that kicks off a two-year tetrad of lunar eclipses is no exception.
In What is a Blood Moon? on one of my favorite blogs, EarthSky, Bruce McClure and Deborah Byrd explain (in part) a subject you might be hearing about this week:
We’ve been receiving a number of inquiries about Blood Moons in 2014 and 2015. The Blood Moons most people are asking about are not part of astronomy. Their origin is religious, at least according to Christian pastor John Hagee, who wrote a 2013 book about Blood Moons. However, both astronomers and some proponents of Christian prophesy are talking about the upcoming lunar tetrad – a series of total lunar eclipses – which begins on the night of April 14-15, 2014. We at EarthSky don’t have any special knowledge about the purported Blood Moons of Biblical prophesy. But, since they’re moons, and since people are asking us, we wanted to reply.
The full moon nearly always appears coppery red during a total lunar eclipse. That’s because the dispersed light from all the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets falls on the face of the moon at mid-eclipse. Thus the term blood moon can be and probably is applied to any and all total lunar eclipses…
Both astronomers and followers of certain Christian pastors are talking about the lunar tetrad of 2014-2015. What is a tetrad? It’s four successive total lunar eclipses, with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six lunar months (six full moons)
We’re not experts on prophecy of any kind. But we’ll tell you what we know about the new definition for Blood Moon that has raised so many questions recently.
From what we’ve been able to gather, two Christian pastors, Mark Blitz and John Hagee, use the term Blood Moon to apply to the full moons of the upcoming tetrad – four successive total lunar eclipses, with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six lunar months (six full moons) – in 2014 and 2015. John Hagee appears to have popularized the term in his 2013 book Four Blood Moons: Something is About to Change.
As if we didn’t have enough to look forward to on April 15th! Read on for lots more. The four eclipses are this one, October 8 2014 and April 4 & September 28, 2015. Here’s the eclipse viewing times for Michigan – times for other time zones can be found on EarthSky.
The April 15th eclipse begins at 2 AM Eastern time when the edge of the moon first enters the amber core of Earth’s shadow. Totality occurs during a 78 minute interval beginning around 3 o’clock in the morning on the east coast, midnight on the west coast. Weather permitting, the red moon will be easy to see across the entirety of North America.
Eastern Daylight Time (April 15, 2014)
Partial umbral eclipse begins: 1:58 a.m. EDT on April 15
Total eclipse begins: 3:07 a.m. EDT
Greatest eclipse: 3:46 a.m. EDT
Total eclipse ends: 4:25 a.m. EDT
Partial eclipse ends: 5:33 a.m. EDT
Michael took this photo of the lunar eclipse on February 20, 2008. View it bigger and see more in his The Moon slideshow.
More of the moon on Michigan in Pictures!
Michigan in Pictures 
Keep up the good work. Bernie
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Beautiful image!
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Beautiful! So if Im on the west coast, the best time to photograph it would be midnight? Do you know if it will be above the horizon at that time?
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Looks like it Laura but I would check with your local astronomy experts!
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I don’t have any lol. But thanks. :)
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