Bright Side Of The Moon: Watch The Eclipse, Get Lunar Software, View Moon Photos.

Despite claims of lunacy, centuries-old labels of ‘lunatic’ or ‘looney’, links to suicide, and with all due respect to urban legend lovers who may beg to differ, the moon has no real effect on Man’s mental health (or wolves‘ physical shape, for that matter.) But for three hours and 26 minutes tonight, we’ll all be under the spell of the total eclipse of the moon. Yes, the moon. Tonight, in a rare astronomical event, the moon passes completely behind the earth’s shadow. This will not happen again until December 21, 2010. What you’ll actually see is the moon appearing to have a vibrant red color. (Of course, there are those who believe tonight’s lunar eclipse and the coincidental(?) shooting down of a US spy satellite filled with poison gas are, indeed, related…)

Those of us living in Manhattan have less of a chance to catch a good look at tonight’s eclipse, give the city’s usual bright lights and the clouds and potential snow predicted for tonight. But if you’re really in the mood to witness this lunar affair, you can head over to the Empire State Building’s Observatory. There are actually two, one on the 86th floor, which is partially enclosed and heated (it’s going to be 22 degrees tonight!) and the 102nd floor Observatory, which you may remember from Sleepless in Seattle. It’s open until 2:00 AM, but the last elevators go up at 1:15 AM. Prices can go up to $60. And tonight, I’m sure it’s worth every penny.

You can also use the fabulous Google Earth program to track and predict tonight’s eclipse, by switching the application to “Sky” mode. There’s, of course, a Google Maps mashup called “Cosmic Visibility” that will easily give you up-to-the-minute lunar location- where the moon is in relation to the earth.

If you’ve become enamored of the moon after tonight’s performance, but can’t wait another three years to see the next, here are some lunar resources to quench your moon madness:

The American Museum of Natural History’s Rose Center for Space and Earth “Full Moon”, “an exhibition of rarely seen photographic prints from NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon, guest curated by artist and landscape photographer Michael Light.”

OS X Applications
EarthDesk: “a stunning dynamic image of our planet continuously updating in the background while you work.” (Mac and Windows.)
MoonMenu: lives in your Menubar, delivers a staggering amount of moon information.
Moon Exploration Dashboard Widget
LunaMenu: “A simple menu bar item that displays an icon of the current phase of the moon.” Also can display on your desktop.
MoonDock: “up-to-date images of the Moon phase in your system Dock or as a floating Moon image on your desktop.”

Photography
MOON Shots on Flickr
Moon Pictures on Flickr

Other Resources
NASA’s Lunar Eclipse page
Mr. Eclipse’s Lunar Eclipses for Beginners

(Above Photo: Phases of a Total Lunar Eclipse)

Tags: American Museum of Natural History, Eclipse, Empire State Building, Mac, Manhattan, Moon, NYC, OS X, Software