NIWA forecasters say expected clear skies are looking good for spotting the Super Blood Moon on Wednesday night.

A Super Blood Moon is a rare combination of three factors: a full Moon, the Moon being at its closest point to Earth in its orbit and a total lunar eclipse.

Between 11:11 and 11:25 pm on Wednesday the Moon will appear rusty red in colour and larger than usual. The red colour is due to the Earth blocking the Sun’s light and only heavily filtered light reaching the Moon.

The best places to view the Super Blood Moon based on NIWA’s forecast models as of Tuesday morning are: Southland, Otago, West Coast, Canterbury, Tasman, Nelson, Marlborough, Wellington, Manawatu-Whanganui, Taranaki, Waikato and Auckland.

Meteorologist Ben Noll says there is some scattered cloud forecast for Fiordland, Northland, and Bay of Plenty, but stargazers shouldn’t be discouraged because there may be enough breaks in the cloud to spot the Moon.

Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne have a reduced chance of spotting it because of thicker cloud cover.

The last time a Super Blood Moon occurred in New Zealand was in December 1982.