'A celestial ballet': People can watch a total lunar eclipse over Sask. on Sunday night

People in Saskatchewan might want to stay up longer than usual this Sunday night.

If the skies are clear, residents in the province and all across the country will be able to watch a special celestial event: the first total lunar eclipse of the year.

The eclipse begins late Sunday evening and lasts until early Monday morning.

"It's a very spectacular astronomical event that happens in slow motion," said Tim Yaworski, outreach coordinator for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Saskatoon Centre.

"It's kind of like watching a sort of a celestial ballet."

What happens in the sky?

During this beautiful performance in the sky, the moon passes through the Earth's shadow, meaning the Earth is between the sun and the moon.

However a lunar eclipse doesn't mean people lose sight of the moon, according to Orbax, a physics educator at the University of Guelph who goes by his first name.

Instead, the moon takes on a red or orange colour, he explained.

"When light comes around the surface of the Earth, the atmosphere of the Earth bends wavelengths, like blue light, out of the way and bends wavelengths of red light in and toward the moon," Orbax said.

WATCH | Animation of a total lunar eclipse:

The whole process of the eclipse is expected to take roughly five and a half hours from start to finish.

"What we see as the eclipse progresses, we go from essentially a beautiful full moon to a moon that starts to get bitten away by the Earth's shadow," said Yaworski.

"So bit by bit, it slowly recedes into shadow. And then when it goes into totality, it goes into an amazing change. It goes into a blood red moon."

Tonight the moon is expected to reach blood-red totality by 10:11 p.m., according to the Meewasin Valley Authority.

Usually people can enjoy this blood-red moon for roughly 45 minutes, said Yaworski, before it comes out of the shadow and slowly returns into its normally sunlit state.

"What's unique about it is the fact that we see it change that colour in a beautiful progression, going from that white to the red and back into the white again."

May 2022 Lunar Eclipse Times in Canada

The weather for the Saskatoon area looks promising for Sunday night to watch the lunar eclipse, said Yaworski.

People hoping to see the red moon don't even need to get out of the cities.

Unlike many other astronomical events where people have to leave light pollution behind in order to see what's happening in the sky, a total lunar eclipse is very accessible, said Yaworski.

"I can be in the middle of downtown Toronto with all the lights around me and enjoy a lunar eclipse because the moon itself is so bright."

"You don't need equipment at all. That's the beauty, that's another part of the accessibility."