LOCAL folk are being urged to look to the heavens to see a rare blood Moon eclipse.

Stargazers are hoping for a clear night as the ‘supermoon’ event brings wonderment to the sky in the early hours of Monday.

According to experts, the Moon will be partially eclipsed between 3.35am and 6.51am on Monday, January 21, with the total eclipse from 4.42am until 5.44am.

It is likely to best seen in the western sky.

The supermoon it also called a wolf moon, and the eclipse should cause a blood moon.

Dominic Curran, from Keighley Astronomical Society, said the event was properly known as a ‘blood Moon eclipse’.

He said: “It’s the first full moon of 2019, and the first lunar eclipse of the year too.

“If we have a clear sky, then we in the United Kingdom will have an excellent opportunity to view it.

“Do take the opportunity to do so as it will be the last total lunar eclipse to grace Earth’s sky until May 26, 2021.”

Mr Curran said a total eclipse of the Moon happened when the Earth passed between the Sun and the Moon.

He said: “The amount of sunlight that hits the Moon is much reduced, and what sunlight does hit the Moon has to pass through the Earth’s atmosphere.

“The atmosphere is full of dust and other partials and blocks out most of the colours of the rainbow. The Moon takes on this red glow.

“The spectacle will start around 2.30am. It will be a total eclipse from 4.40am until 5.45am, before ending before dawn breaks at 7.50am.”

Mr Curran said the expression Blood Moon gained popularity in 2013 when two Christian pastors coined the term in a book describing an upcoming ‘lunar tetrad’ of eclipses in apocalyptic terms.

He explained: “A supermoon is a new or full moon closely coinciding with ‘perigee’, which is the moon’s closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit. The moon does not orbit the Earth in a perfect circle but on an oval path.

“The definition of a supermoon was formulated 1979 as ‘a full moon or new moon has to come within 90 per cent of its closest approach to Earth’.

“In other words, any full moon or new moon that comes to within 224,775 miles (or less) of our planet, as measured from the centres of the Moon and Earth.

"This supermoon will be the first in a series of three full supermoons – the other dates will be very 19 2019 and March 21, 2019. But we will have to wait until 2021 before we have the next super blood red Moon.”

Eclipses of the Moon can be easily seen with the unaided eye, and binoculars could give a good view of the Moon’s surface too.