All we need for Wednesday night is a clear sky and the Moon will put up a spectacular show for us. Sure, much colder than the one in August, but if you don’t want to wait until December 2010, you can’t miss this show. The best part is that this time it will start at a much more reasonable hour, 7:43 CST, and will last for approximately four hours.

If you don’t want to watch the whole show, the eclipse will peak at around 10:26 CST, when the Sun, Earth and Moon will perfectly align. The Moon will completely disappear from sight upon entering the Earth’s shadow, which will deprive it of sunlight. The cone of shadow will turn the Moon vivid red, due to the dust particles in Earth’s atmosphere.

This is one opportunity all astronomy lovers shouldn’t miss, as most moon eclipses, although annual, are usually partial and don’t offer the same spectacle as total ones. “A really good opportunity like this only comes along once a decade,” David Morrison, interim director of the Lunar Science Institute at the NASA/Ames Research Center said for mercurynews.com.

And if you think the Moon is the only thing you’ll see… or don’t see, Saturn decided to play along and join the spectacle. The sixth planet from the Sun will become visible on the lower left side of the moon. Unfortunately, so far the National Weather Service has given us nothing but “cloudy” news for Wednesday, but considering the eclipse will last for several hours, it is very likely that we’ll be able to catch a glimpse.

The next chance to see the amazing show will be on December 21, 2010, while the next one will not take place for five more years. So all we can do for tonight is hope for clear skies, or at least for a hole in the clouds to see the total lunar eclipse.