A once-in-a-lifetime event, the super blue blood moon, will be visible January 31. The best view with the peak eclipse will begin at 6:36 a.m. and last for three minutes before the sun rises and the moon sets around 6:40 a.m. When the Moon is closest to the Earth, is called the Supermoon, which is also known as the perigee point. This will be the first blue moon for 2018.
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The clearest view of the super blue blood moon will be available to those in the western United States.
There’s an unusual celestial event taking place this week: An eclipse will occur during the moon’s closest pass to earth and a blue supermoon.
What is a full moon? On this day, the moon will look bigger than ordinary days and the blood moon will appear in the sky.
This will turn the moon a brooding, dark red due to light being bent or refracted onto its surface by the earth’s atmosphere.
The total lunar eclipse on Wednesday evening promises to be a spectacle as it would be a rare “Super blood blue moon”.
Western Europe, western Africa and most of South America will all miss out.
All of these facts are meaningless if it’s cloudy and we can’t see the eclipse.
The umbral phase of the eclipse will begin at 5:48 a.m. Totality begins at 6:52 a.m. but the moon will set at 7:02 a.m.
If you have good photographs of the moon during this event we’d like to see them.
What makes this evening more interesting, is the fact that Super Moon and the Blue Moon are coinciding with a Total Lunar Eclipse on Wednesday, i.e. 31 January. For the eastern US and Canada, a clear view will be limited as the Moon sets and the Sun rises during the early stages of the eclipse.
So, it’s a supermoon that is also a blood moon, but where does “blue” come in? This is very rare and there’s no saying when it’ll happen again, so you better look out your window tomorrow night. Too many trees, hills and bluffs across the region makes it hard to find a clear view of the western horizon.
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Totality will last more than an hour. If you miss the 31 January lunar eclipse, then you’ll have to wait nearly another year for the next opportunity in North America. The agency will have multiple telescopes streaming the eclipse, Petro tweeted, so “everyone can enjoy the eclipse!”
