Denver stargazers are in a prime location to watch the Earth's shadow move slowly across the moon's surface early tomorrow morning.

The total lunar eclipse, the second this year, can be viewed in Colorado starting at 2:51 a.m. It will last until about 5:22 a.m.

But clouds may interfere with the perfect view, a National Weather Service meteorologist said this morning.

"This is very easy to spot because people just have to look at the moon, which is going to be on its full phase," said Tito Salas, operations manager at the Fiske Planetarium and Science Center in Boulder.

The totality of the eclipse will occur about 3:54 a.m. At that time, the moon should be about halfway between the horizon of the West and the zenith, which is the highest part of the sky, he said.

That's when the moon will take on a bright hue.

"You should be able to see a red-orange glow," Salas said.

He said the best way to see the lunar eclipse is not with a telescope, but "with your naked eye or a small pair of binoculars."

"At about 2:30 a.m., people will see a full moon. At about 2:51, they start to see the shadow cast over the moon. That will continue getting a bigger and bigger bite, until it gets into totality," Salas said.

The key, Salas said, is that clouds don't block the sight.

The meteorologist says that likely won't be the case.

"It's not going to be a typical Colorado night that the skies clear out at 9 and 10 o'clock. We have a pretty strong weather system moving through, bringing clouds and thundershowers ... unless we get lucky, we're not going to get a very good viewing of it," said David Barjenbruch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Boulder office.

"It's looks like mostly cloudy skies through that period. We could get lucky, though. That's not to say we're going to get totally skunked on this. There may be some breaks at times."