The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center is hosting a geek twofer on March 14 aka 3.14 aka Pi Day: A look at the total lunar eclipse plus some pi-related activities.

You haven’t head much about this eclipse because it’s happening very late, or very early: The moon starts entering the Earth’s shadow right before midnight and totality is from 2:26 to 3:31 a.m.

Like most places, New Hampshire sees a full lunar eclipse every two or three years. Lunar eclipses, when the Earth gets between the sun and the moon, are much more common than solar eclipses, when the moon gets between the sun and the Earth. That’s mostly because each one is visible to far more people.

A lunar eclipse can be watched by anybody who can see the full moon, roughly half the planet. A solar eclipse can only be seen by people within the small area covered by the moon’s shadow, much smaller than New Hampshire, for the short period that it travels across the surface. 

To help you stay awake, the Discovery Center has set up a Lunar Eclipse event starting at midnight. They’ll have explanations of eclipses, puzzles and activities related to pi – best known as the ratio between the circumference and radius (oops – I meant diameter!) of a circle but also one of the most important numbers in modern mathematics that shows up in really surprising places – and that guaranteed crowdpleaser, free pizza.

To find out more and register for the free event, check out www.starhop.com/lunar-eclipse-pi-day