Thousands of people witnessed an astonishing astronomical trio of events last night when the super blue blood moon eclipse captivated stargazers.
But those looking skywards in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory missed out on the event by 26 minutes, thanks to the vagaries of our summer time zones.
The full moon happens at a precise time — 1:26pm UTC January 31 — everywhere around the world at the equivalent time, meaning the full moon last night fell on January 31 in most Australian time zones, explained Melbourne Planetarium astronomer Tanya Hill.
A full moon also happened on January 2, and two full moons in the same month is a rare occurrence known as a blue moon.
But with the clocks wound forward by an hour, the full moon hit at 12:26am on February 1 in the states observing summer daylight saving.
"Technically it's not a blue moon for those states, but for everyone else it is," Dr Hill says.
Perth stargazers turn out by the thousand
There were no such technical hitches in Perth, where thousands of people came together under clear skies to enjoy one of the best views of the super blood blue moon.
The Gravity Discovery Centre organised the event at a reserve in Stirling, where dozens of telescopes and a large screen broadcast were set up for the rare alignment of lunar moments.
More than 5,000 people are estimated to have participated, bringing chairs, rugs, pets and, in some cases, their own telescopes.
Elisa Di Giulio said she and her friends saw it as a rare opportunity.
"We thought, well, the blood moon, it doesn't happen every day, right?" she said.
"We didn't know actually it was going to be so big. Normally, you see the moon that is flat, like two dimension.
"It looked like a ball really floating in the sky. It was beautiful, very exciting."
Joe Friend and his partner hail from Newcastle and flew all the way to Perth for the event because it promised the clearest view.
He said he was impressed with the "lunar trifecta", as well as the enthusiasm he witnessed.
"You can be sure that you've got fine weather, like Adelaide, it's always fine, so astronomy blossoms here," he said.
Huge turnout an inspiration: organisers
One of the organisers described the turnout as "staggering".
Gravity Discovery Centre Manager Richard Tonello said the so-called "lunar trifecta" — which piled including the blood moon, caused by the eclipse, and the super moon, caused by the moon's close proximity to earth, on top of a "blue moon" — clearly stirred interest.
"The turnout is just fantastic," he said. "It's just encouraged me, it's given me a lot of hope that people are interested in astronomy, that Western Australians are interested in astronomy.
"Everybody has an astronomer in them, especially dating back from when they were kids, and it's encouraging to see that these people are getting in touch with their young astronomer."
