Super blue blood moon: When and where the 'purple' lunar eclipse will arrive, and what path it will take

Everyone will get to see the supermoon, while nobody will really get to see the blue moon

The super blue blood moon is nearly here – but not for everyone.

On the night of 31 January, the world will be subject to not just one but three uncommon events: a lunar eclipse, a big supermoon, and a blue moon. Individually the three aren't entirely rare, but they haven't happened together for decades.

While some of the event will be visible to everyone, only select parts of the world will get to see the full collision of three events. The lunar eclipse will be fully visible only to people in the east of Asia and the west of the US, though more of the world will get to see some of it.

That might all seem a little complicated. But helpfully Nasa has put together a full map of where the eclipse will be visible and where it won't be, which you can find below.

(Nasa (Nasa)

Everything will start to happen at 10.51am on 31 January, in the UTC timezone. The full lunar eclipse begins at 12.51am, it reaches its maximum point at 1.29pm, and the full eclipse will finish at 2.07pm, though some of it will be visible after that.

To work out what time that is where you are, just subtract or add your normal timezone from the London time. In New York, for instance, it will begin around 6am because its timezone is -5; in Sydney, everything will kick off at about 10pm, because it is in the +11 timezone.

It's worth noting that everyone will get to see the supermoon, since that's about its proximity to us. That will actually begin on the night of 30 January, and it should be big for the next few days.

What's more, everybody – or, more accurately, nobody – will get to see the blue moon, because there's not actually anything to see. The phrase refers to the phenomenon when there's two full moons in one month, and so whenever you look up you'll be seeing the blue moon, but there won't actually be anything to see.