The early hours of Tuesday bring us the rare opportunity to witness a total lunar eclipse. Our friends at NASA have all the info you’ll need.

Photo by J.C. Rojas via Flickr.

I’m heading into the hills Monday night with a couple of cameras and a few friends to carry them for me, but you won’t need to leave the city to see this. So take a nap after work, and wake your ass up around 2AM to catch the show! The weather looks promisingly clear and pleasantly warm, with lows in the mid-50s.

You can be sure that thousands of dilated pupils on The Playa will be looking up at the same moon as you are.

Bonus round: If you’re a super-astro-photo-nerd like I aspire to be, you’ll also have a chance to catch an Iridium Flare while you’re up (though the pre-dawn light may drown it out). Flickr has many shiny, shiny examples of these lovely alignments of the sun, a satellite’s trajectory, the angle of its panels, and your location on the ground at a certain time.