Blue Super Moon + Lunar Eclipse

The end of January 2018 brings a coincidental occurrence of a blue moon, a super moon, and a lunar eclipse.  Let's be clear from the start of this post that you will NOT see a moon that is blue and you will not see a moon that is super large in the sky.  So what will you see?

Blue Moon:  It would be really cool if the moon appeared bright blue during a blue moon, but a blue moon is simply a second full moon in the same calendar month.  The moon has a phase cycle of 29.5 days.  This means the moon will be in its full phase every 29.5 days.  Since most months are 30 or 31 days in length, if there is a full moon on the first or second day of a month, there will be a second full moon on one of the very last days of the month.  But this doesn't make the moon blue.  This full moon will look similar to all full moons.

Super Moon:  The moon's orbit about the Earth is close to a perfect circle, but not quite.  It is slightly elliptical, meaning that sometimes the moon is a bit closer to the Earth and at other times it is a bit farther away.  Does the moon appear a bit bigger when it's at its closest approach?  Yes, but unless you take detailed observations of the moon on a daily basis, you are very unlikely to notice this difference in size.  It's simply not that big of a change.

Lunar Eclipse:  A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and moon align in a straight line with the Earth blocking sunlight from reaching the moon.  Earth casts a shadow on the moon and the moon starts to disappear in the sky.  When the shadow completely crosses the moon, the moon appears orangish due to red light refracting through Earth's atmosphere and bending to strike the moon and reflecting back to us.  There's a lunar eclipse on the morning of Wednesday, January 31, but not everyone in the U.S. will see it.  If you are in the western third of the U.S., you'll see a total eclipse before the moon sets in western sky.  If you live in the eastern 2/3 of the U.S., unfortunately the moon will set before it reaches totality.  In fact, it will set before any of the umbral (darkest) shadow appears.  For those of you in the latter scenario, which includes me, our next opportunity to see a total lunar eclipse from the eastern 2/3 of the U.S. is January 20/21 2019.  That's only a 1 year wait.

Example of a lunar eclipse.