Clear skies in the early hours of Wednesday morning are set to afford star gazers a rare sighting of a partial eclipse of a supermoon which is also a harvest moon.

The eclipse will last for just over an hour from 3.13am to 4.16am on Wednesday as three lunar events coincide.

According to Astronomy Ireland the eclipse is an especially rare event as there will be a full moon at its closet to earth, which means it is a supermoon.

Adding to the spectacle is the fact that this full moon is also a harvest moon. The term “harvest moon” refers to the full, bright moon that occurs closest to the start of autumn. The name dates from the time before electricity, when farmers depended on the moon’s light to harvest their crops late into the night.

Mid-eclipse should be around 3.44am when a large dark “bite” will be taken out of the moon’s top edge – this is the Earth’s shadow in space crossing the lunar surface.

“Met Éireann is forecasting mostly clear skies for the whole of Ireland so everyone should get to see this supermoon eclipse, a very rare event, so it is well worth staying up for and booking a day’s holiday if you have work the next day,” said David Moore, editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine.

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