'Snow Moon' Lunar Eclipse, Comet in Skies Feb. 10

Look up, Rhode Island, and you'll see a sight tonight. The earth will pass in front of the moon, making for a penumbral lunar eclipse. And if you get really lucky, you'll see a comet shooting across the heavens.

A full moon - a "snow moon," actually - will hang in the sky tonight. The lunar surface of the snow moon will be subtly shadowed by a penumbral lunar eclipse — when Earth, the sun and moon align, EarthSky says.

It's not exactly a common occurrence: This will be the last penumbral lunar eclipse until 2020, according to AccuWeather. It will be best viewed from the eastern portions of North America, after sunset tonight. For East Coasters, it is expected to begin at 5:32 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and will peak at 7:43 p.m., according to Space.com. Can't see from your neighborhood? You can also watch the eclipse online via US Naval Observatory.

Of course, your luck in seeing this sky show depends on the weather. A few more inches of snow are expected to start falling tonight. Subscribe to your local Patch to keep for local news alerts and newsletters.

Not be to overshadowed (excuse the space pun,) Comet 45P will be visible to Earth the next few days, coming as close as 7.7 million miles Saturday morning, NASA says. That's roughly 30 times the distance between the moon and Earth, but still relatively close for this comet.

NASA is recommending binoculars or a telescope to see Comet 45P.

"Discovered in 1948, 45P is a short-period comet, with an orbit that takes it around the sun and out by Jupiter about every 5-1/4 years," NASA said. "This weekend’s encounter will be the comet’s closest with Earth through the end of this century. The comet will pass by our planet again in 2032 but will be much farther away – at a distance of nearly 30 million miles (about 48 million kilometers)."

Two more comets will pass by in April and December of this year, NASA said. To learn more pretty interesting stuff about Comet 45P, check out what NASA has to say.

Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon February 10 - 11, 2017 from LarryKoehn on Vimeo.

Kara Seymour, Patch staff, contributed to this report