If you're new to the party, a total lunar eclipse will occur during the supermoon Blue Moon on Wednesday. The best views will be from the U.S. West Coast, but it will be visible from all of North America.
On Jan. 31, not every place on Earth will see the Blue Moon this month, because the second full moon of January won't technically appear in those places until Feb. 1. These places include regions in eastern Asia and eastern Australia, where skywatchers won't see the first full moon until Jan. 2 and the next full moon until the morning of Feb. 1. For example, in Melbourne, Australia, the full moon arrives on Jan. 2 at 1:24 p.m. local time, and the next full moon is on Feb. 1 at 1:26 a.m., so skywatchers will technically miss the Blue Moon by less than 2 hours.
But their fellow Aussies in Perth, in the southwestern part of the country, will get one, since the first full moon occurs on Jan. 2 at 10:24 a.m. local time, so the moon will still look quite full when it rises at 7:35 p.m. On Jan. 31, the moon rises at 7:09 p.m. and reaches fullness at 9:26 p.m.
So, this Wednesday’s event is simply a super-blue moon for us.
This is still a pretty rare astronomical event! By calculations, the combination of a supermoon and blue moon only happens about once every 133 full moons, roughly once every 11 years…not bad!
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