LOS ANGELES—Skywatchers across western North America set their alarms to awaken before dawn on Wednesday Jan. 31 to see a rare type of lunar eclipse called a “Super Blue Blood Moon,” with hundreds expected to view the phenomenon from a Los Angeles mountaintop.
As is the case with all total lunar eclipses, the Earth will cast a darkened red-tinted shadow across the face of its natural satellite, hence the term “blood moon,” but two other factors are combining to make Wednesday’s spectacle particularly unusual.
