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If you can see past the clouds early on the 31th you'll get a great show. The eclipse starts on late January 31st at 12:51 am and reaches maximum eclipse at 03:29 am. The total eclipse is visible for 1 hour and 16 minutes between 02:51 am and 04:07 am. The moon will appear redish during that 1 hour.
This lunar eclipse happens during a blue moon, which means that it is the second full moon in a calendar month. A blue moon happens once every two or three years. During the eclipse the moon is also near its closest approach to our planet making it appear ~7% larger than an average full moon.
Animation and time tables are here:
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/honolulu
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This event hasn't happened in the past 150 years, so no one alive today has ever seen it happen. The Volcano National Park is hosting an event earlier that evening (30th). Astronomer Dean Regas, of PBS Star Gazers, will be there atop Kilauea. The talk is at the visitors center Tues. Jan. 30 at 8:30 pm following the After Dark in the Park.
Park events:
https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/news/2017...events.htm
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It's only the first in 150 years for 4 time zones, it's happened in the recent past for other parts of the world. So people alive have seen this phenomena occur.
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Just to clarify, the eclipse starts early Jan 31st, i.e., after midnight on the night of 30th/31st Jan.
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rainyjim - do you have a link for your info? I see a lot of conflicting claims. I'm not doubting you because the combination of a supermoon, blue moon and lunar eclipse happened in 1982, but it can be a little confusing. One of the main problems is a blue moon is completely arbitrary as it depends on your location and the calendar, and has no real significance.
An interesting read - Forbes:
https://goo.gl/ptw1ti - especially if you're into probabilities!
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Let's hope the weather is different by then. If not, we'll likely see nothing except a dull glow behind clouds.
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It'll be close. The daytime 30th is supposed to be OK but a front is supposed to move in during the night.
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According to NASA the last time the supermoon, bluemoon and eclipse happened was
1866. In 1982, a blue moon, a supermoon and a lunar eclipse occurred at the same time on Dec. 30, 1982, but only for the Eastern Hemisphere. Because of time zones, the full moon was not considered a blue moon for North America as the previous full moon occurred at the end of Nov. 30, not early on Dec. 1.
The blue moon part of it is pretty arbitrary, but makes it unique. These three events occurring are quite rare, statistically from another article:
Blue Moons make up about 3% of all full Moons,
Supermoons are approximately 25% of all full Moons, and
Total lunar eclipses occur during 5.6% of full Moons,
meaning that a Blue, Super, totally eclipsed Moon occurs with 0.042% of full Moons: once every 2,380 full Moons or so. On average, that corresponds to once every 265 years!
Edit: I was on my phone and in a hurry. Stats from here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswitha...se-really/
This article includes a discussion about the 1982 eclipse not being a blue moon:
https://www.space.com/39432-get-ready-fo...lipse.html
I can't find the NASA page anymore but many reference their Cannon of lunar eclipses
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/lunar.html
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rainyjim - thanks, but I can't tell from that page if it was a supermoon - I think the supermoon was in the previous month that year, but then it depends on the definition you use. Secondly, it seems the eclipse was visible from Hawaii. As I said, the various claims are a little confusing and somewhat arbitrary.
