I'm not sure what you mean by 'peak' but it should be in total eclipse from about 10:00 until 10:50..... pretty cool though, not gonna happen again until 2010.
it should get pretty dark red when it is in its prime.
its because the earth is in between the moon and the sun. it is a different color all depending on which side of the earths shadow the sun hits. i believe that is how it goes.
Its red because the earth basically acts like a prism....the light from the sun like refracts or something around it and depending on where you see it it can actually be blue or green or red or whatever. It goes something like that, we learned about it in physics but i didnt really pay attention.