Rare super blue blood moon may be visible from Pictou County

Something not seen in 150 years is happening today, and depending on the weather, there may be an opportunity to see it.

The super blue blood moon may be visible at certain times today, according to meteorologists.

“There is a fighting chance that in New Glasgow (and Pictou County), you might see it. We’re calling for mainly cloudy – it doesn’t say cloudy, it says mainly cloudy – and there may be a few breaks in the clouds, to get a look,” said meteorologist David Phillips. “People should look, but I’m not sure I would necessarily book a vacation around it.”

Meteorologist Cindy Day said it is well worth the effort to take a look for the moon today, since it’s such an exceptional and rare astronomical phenomenon.

“They say these conditions are not going to happen again until 2038. It’s something to be excited about,” said Day. “There’s going to be a lot going on in the sky.”

The super blue blood moon will be most visible in the evening, where it will appear 14 per cent brighter, and as, “a beautiful full moon. It won’t be red or blue or anything, but with all that new snow on the ground, it’ll be nice and bright,” said Day.

The extravagantly named super blood blue moon is also known as a trifecta moon: an astronomic spectacle that has three unique properties occurring all at the same time, which give it its name.

First, the super blue blood moon is the second full moon in the span of a month – the popular definition of a blue moon, which is rare enough of itself.

Coinciding with the blue moon is the fact that it’s a blood moon. Day said, “they’re calling it a blood moon, too, and what makes it that way is that there’s going to be a total lunar eclipse.”
Unfortunately, the eclipse will not be visible in Eastern Canada because of where and at what time it has taken place.

The best time to catch the eclipse would have been around 6:50 a.m. this morning. The eclipse, from Eastern Canada would have appeared just to be a “shadow cast on the moon,” but Day noted that it isn’t the most interesting kind of eclipse – it’s a penumbral eclipse.
“It’s not the bite out of the moon you see when it’s a lunar eclipse,” said Day.
Finally, the “super” part of the super blue blood moon is probably the one that will make it most memorable. The super moon should appear seven per cent larger than usual, since today it is on its closest point of orbit around Earth.

Since the orbit of the moon around Earth is elliptical and not circular, there are points in its path of orbit that the moon gets exceptionally close to Earth, compared to the rest of its orbit. Day said those points in time are when the super moon occurs.