Wednesday morning's lunar eclipse is a 'phenomenon that's barely possible'

If you'll be in North America on the Pacific coast Wednesday morning, you're in luck: This is the prime viewing area for the second "blood moon" eclipse of the year.

The full lunar eclipse can be seen by the naked eye. It's the second in a series of four consecutive total eclipses taking place in six month intervals, known as a tetrad. The next lunar eclipse will take place April 4, 2015.

But it's not just the West Coast that will see a spectacular show in the sky; in the eastern portion of the United States and parts of Australia, Asia, and the Pacific, there will be an effect known as selenelion — when the sun and eclipsed moon can be seen at the same time. It's only able to happen right before sunset or just after sunrise, when the sun and moon are at almost exactly opposite points in the sky. They appear at the same time due to the refraction of light through the Earth's atmosphere.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"It's a phenomenon that's barely possible," Michael Zeiler, curator of Eclipse-Maps.com, told NBC News. "Besides being in the right location, you have to have the right conditions. Those right conditions require that you be at a high point, with an excellent view toward the horizon to the east and the west, and have transparent sky conditions to see both the sun and the moon."

To get an approximate time of when the lunar eclipse is visible in your area, use this Lunar Eclipse Computer.