It's a fabulous night for a moondance

Far away from the city lights, the sky, glittered with stars, turns pitch black from a totally eclipsed moon that hangs just above the tree tops.

On Sunday, March 23, the United States and Canada will have the opportunity to experience the novelty and mystic beauty of a lunar eclipse.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth lies between the sun and the moon and the moon passes into the Earth's umbra or shadow. The partial eclipse will make its awe-inspriring debut on the West Coast at 6:58 p.m. reaching maximum eclipse at 8:39 p.m. The partial eclipse ends at 10:21 p.m.

This lunar eclipse, which only occurs during a full moon, will be extreme but will not be complete. At its deepest, only 92 percent of the moon's diameter will be within the shadowed umbra of the Earth.

"During the lunar eclipse, you can still see the portion of the moon outside the Earth's shadow," said Paul Hintzen, Cal State Long Beach professor of physics and astronomy.

The siloette should appear redish or orangeish according to Hintzen. "The Earth's atmosphere knocks out blue light and lets the red through," He said.

Adding to the visual feast will be the illustrious orange Mars about 21 degrees to the right of the moon. The moon will be high in the unlit sky as seen from nearly all of North America. This is the last of a year-long run of lunar eclipses.

The next total eclipse of the moon will make an appearance on Sept. 15 in Asia. There is not another partial eclipse scheduled until July 28, 1999.

On Jan. 20-21, 2000, the United States and Canada will once again have front row seats to the awesome visual spectacle of the lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse is viewed by more than half of the planet because the Earth rotates so that the moon is recognized from more places.

Though man has been watching eclipses for 300 centuries, everything we have learned about them has been within the last 40 years. The changing size of the moon should not be confused with a well-known optical illusion.

The moon looks larger when it is rising or setting. The illusion is created when familiar objects such as mountains and buildings help judge the size. To estimate the next lunar eclipse, one can take the date of the current lunar eclipse and add on 6,585 days. With rare exceptions, this calculation will give the date of a similar eclipse.