January 20 will not only mark the first full moon of 2019, its uniqueness has earned it the nickname of “Super Blood Wolf Moon,” due to the confluence of celestial events taking place that evening.
“It’s a lunar eclipse, but it’s also a supermoon,” said H.R. MacMillan Space Centre astronomer Kat Kelly. “Those two things can happen separately, but they’re both happening at the same time.”
A supermoon occurs when the moon is at its closest point to earth in its orbit and a lunar eclipse happens when the moon passes through the earth’s shadow, giving it a reddish hue due to refracted sunlight from the earth.
“The blood moon describes that kind of red hazy effect, the colour that the moon appears during a lunar eclipse,” added Kelly.
The Farmers’ Almanac explains the provenance of the name wolf moon as follows:“In Native American and early Colonial times, the full moon for January was called the Full Wolf Moon. It appeared when wolves howled in hunger outside the villages.”
Throughout history the moon has been used as a way to mark time as its transit through the sky could be seen over 28 days, however, lunar eclipses and blood moons do not necessarily have a measurable repeating period, according to Kelly. This has led them to take on extra significance, both good and bad in cultures throughout the world.
“It’s interesting to think what people may have thought before they knew the reason for the redness of the moon,” she said. “It must have been pretty scary.”
Viewing of the event will be best in North America, and in BC the spectacle will kick off early evening.
“There are a few stages to a lunar eclipse,” said Kelly. “I would say the most exciting bit begins at around 7:30 pm, that’s where you will start to see some kind of shadow begin to cover the moon. Then it will get more and more full until about 9:12 pm. That will be the reddest and the peak of the eclipse.”
Those in the Lower Mainland can visit the Space Centre to experience the sight.
“We are doing a viewing here at the Space Centre; we’ll have a planetarium show and some telescopes if people want to come somewhere special,” said Kelly. “But as long as you can see the moon you should be able to see it wherever you are.”
