Super Blue Blood Moon Picks: Patch Photos Of The Week

LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA — On Wednesday, the whole of southern California woke early or stayed up late to view the once in a lifetime super blue blood moon. Best seen in the wee small hours of the morning, resident Kevin Kothlow paused at Seaview Park with his telescope to snap pictures of the epic lunar show. The fact that no one had witnessed such a thing in over 150 years helped many to drag themselves out of bed to take in the event.

Prime viewing for the full moon followed by lunar eclipse show was approximately 4:50 a.m. To capture these images, Kothlow used a little bit of ingenuity and a lot of luck.

"I held my iPhone over my telescope lens," Kothlow admitted to his friends on the Laguna Niguel Neighborhood group page. Though it was a bit of a MacGyver move, praise Kothlow received for the photos was proof positive that his photography equivalent of spit and bailing-wire worked.

It was almost impossible to not take pictures of the event, though without a telescope or a strong lens camera, the disc of the moon appeared small and insignificant or wide and fuzzy. With the naked eye, however, the sight of the super blue blood moon was breathtaking.

Did you miss it?

A lunar eclipse can only happen at a full moon, and can occur a minimum of two times to a maximum of five times in a calendar year — there will be five lunar eclipses in 2018, according to Earthsky.org, but only the Jan. 31 lunar eclipse will be visible in the United States. The next time a total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America is Jan. 21, 2019, and it will be visible throughout all of the United States. It will also be a supermoon, but it won't be a blue moon.

Want some historical perspective? the last time a supermoon, blue moon and lunar eclipse coincided, on March 31, 1866.

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Photo credit: courtesy of Kevin Kothlow, Laguna Niguel