The Oct. 27 event will be the second total lunar eclipse of the year -- the first was in May, though it wasn't visible from here -- and the last one the world will see until August 2007.

To mark the occasion, the Chabot Space and Science Center will host an eclipse viewing party that night. In an eclipse, a full or almost-full moon partially or wholly passes through the umbra of Earth's shadow, turning the sky red.

"Hopefully, there won't be any fog that evening," said Chabot's marketing director, Judyth Collin. If there is fog in the Bay Area, the center will show live feeds of the eclipse from different places around the world, Collin said.

According to NASA, October's full moon is the "hunter's moon" or the "blood moon," so-named because hunters used to track and kill their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead.

The "blood moon" will rise over the Bay Area about 8 p.m. and finish its eclipse around 8:45 p.m.

Collin said if the moon is visible, the Bay Area probably will see a red sky because of pollution, including smoke from last week's fires in the North Bay.

Bay Area stargazers last saw a lunar eclipse in June 2002, from 5:07 to 7:19 p.m. The eclipse peaked at 6:16 p.m., Chabot astronomer Denni Medlock said.

Chabot's executive director, Alexandra Barnett, said next week's event should attract both young and old.

"It's a dramatic reminder of the connection between Earth and space," Barnett said. "Viewing an eclipse, particularly for kids, helps them think about the fact that they are part of a bigger world, one that reaches into the universe."

Barnett has been executive director of Chabot since 2003, when she left nonprofit National Space Science Center in Leicester, England. Since her tenure at Chabot, the center opened its 36-inch refractor telescope, named Nellie, and the Mars Encounter exhibit, and presented programs from local musicians in the Chabot Ask Jeeves planetarium.

She helped Chabot acquire a Russian Soyuz space capsule and Russian space program artifacts in 2003. Some of the Russian artifacts are now on display at Chabot.

Chabot's Oct. 27 event will begin in the planetarium at

8 p.m. Tickets to the planetarium show are $10 for adults, $7 for youth, and $5 for Chabot members.

Chabot astronomer Ryan Diduck will give a separate lecture about the history and lore of eclipses, also in the planetarium and following the live feed. Tickets to that lecture are an extra $6 for adults and $5 for youth.

The Chabot observatory deck will be open, free to the public, from 7:45 to 10:45 p.m.

Chabot is at 10000 Skyline Blvd. in the Oakland hills.

Tickets are available at Chabot's Box Office, 336-7373.