SkyMatters: Get ready for the total eclipse of the moon tonight - it will be worth staying up for

Dr Niall Smith says the first hint of May’s eclipse will start at about 3:30am

The first hint of May’s eclipse will start at about 3:30am, with totality beginning at 4:30am, so, yes, this is one for the early birds amongst us

To our ancient ancestors the rules of the Universe may have been something of a mystery. Our forefathers may not have understood gravity, amongst other phenomena, but they certainly noticed events which repeated time and again, such as the rising and setting of the Sun or the phases of the Moon. 

In fact in some instances our ancestors became so expert at recording repetitious events that they were able to predict future events with some considerable degree of accuracy. For example, we know from records that date back almost 3000 years that the Mesopotamians knew that the pattern of lunar eclipses repeats every 18 years, 10 days and eight hours – an extraordinary feat of observation and book-keeping, or as we might refer to it today, data management.