By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Jan 30, 2018 at 9:24 PM

Well, it's a marvelous night (and morning) for a moondance.

Less than a year after rudely but spectacularly moving in front of the sun during the big solar eclipse of 2017, the moon has arrived in 2018 with some more free entertainment for us – in Wednesday's case, a four-phenomena extravaganza called a Super Blue Blood Moon. 

Tonight marks a full moon – but not just any full moon, but the second one in the month of January, making it the rare and mythical blue moon. However, the moon will not look blue; instead, because there is also a lunar eclipse taking place tonight, with the Earth's shadow moving across the celestial orb, the moon will actually look a reddish color. Thus, the "blood" part of the Super Blue Blood Moon moniker. And then it's also a supermoon, meaning it'll look slightly larger than one's usual full moon.

Taken on their own, none of these lunar occurrences are all that exciting or rare, but all brought together, it should make for one phenomenal morning – one you should celebrate in one of these blissfully blue moon-themed ways. 

1. Watch it ... obviously

Just like the solar eclipse last year, the forecast for tomorrow's lunar spectacular is cloudy. But thankfully the clouds shouldn't get in the way too much. The eclipse will begin at approximately 5:48 a.m., with totality starting at 6:51 a.m. and the moon turning its reddish hue around 6:15 a.m. The moon will then set in the northwest at approximately 7:06 a.m.

If you can't see the eclipse through the clouds from your location, thankfully NASA and The Slooh Community Observatory will have your back, broadcasting the Super Blue Blood Moon online starting at 4:30 a.m. and 4:45 a.m., respectively. 

2. Drink a Blue Moon beer

OK, so knocking back a beer at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday morning is normally frowned upon in polite society, but hey, it's probably noon somewhere! And plus it's a special occasion, so why not crack open a Blue Moon Belgian White beer.

Born originally in Denver in the middle of a baseball stadium, the brewery crafted three America's pastime-themed beverages: Slugger Stout, Rightfield Red and Bellyslide Wit. That final brew became a favorite, with one person noting that "a beer that tastes this good comes around only once in a blue moon" and inspiring its new – and permanent – name. And now that you know that, drink one for breakfast! There's a pork chop in every bottle!

3. Eat some Blue Moon ice cream

(PHOTO: Wendy Berry/Flickr)

If you're a native Wisconsinite – or Midwesterner in general – it's easy to take this seemingly omnipresent bright blue ice cream flavor for granted. But while most of us have been born and raised around the sweet treat – which has no one exact flavor or recipe, but is often described as tasting like your favorite sugary childhood cereal – the flavor is almost exclusively a regional delicacy, not straying far from its rumored Wisconsin roots. So what better day than the morning of a Super Blue Blood Moon to indulge yourself in some ice cream for breakfast ... and lunch ... and dinner ... and fourthmeal ... and then Thursday for breakfast again. 

4. Listen to "Blue Moon"

Back in 1934, the iconic music duo of future Packers tight end Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote the popular romantic standard "Blue Moon." And over the next several decades, musician after musician took a crack at the timeless tune, from The Marcels to Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday to Elvis Presley, Ella Fitzgerald to Rod Stewart. So pick one of these renditions – or one of the many others you can find on the internet – and set the mood with "Blue Moon." Or set it as your alarm clock song, so you'll not only wake up but also groggily remember why you're up so flipping early. 

5. Watch a Blue Moon movie or TV show

Not that you should ever watch the live-action "Smurfs" movie from 2011 ... but if there was ever a time to watch the live-action "Smurfs" movie from 2011, a Blue Moon would be it considering the lunar landmark plays a large role in the film. (So does Neil Patrick Harris.) If you'd like to watch something better for the Blue Moon, however, there's Otto Preminger's "The Moon is Blue" (nominated for three Oscars). Or maybe you'd like to binge through some of the adventures of Blue Moon Investigations in the TV series "Moonlighting." And then there's "The Sopranos," which features a Blue Moon reference during its still-awesome opening credits sequence ... though I highly doubt they're referring to lunar stuff.

6. Relive Randy Moss' moon

For the rest of the nation, tonight marks a pretty rare event. But for Packers fans, they've already experienced the, uh, unique phenomenon of looking at a moon and seeing red. 

7. Celebrate that we're all still alive

Like I mentioned in the opening, the blue moon is just one of the four lunar events taking place tomorrow morning. There's also a blood moon, which is a fairly common phenomenon – such as the time four blood moons occurred between April 2014 and September 2015 and were supposed to bring the end of the days. The apocalyptic theory was called the blood moon prophecy, preached by Christian ministers John Hagee and Mark Blitz, and – spoiler alert – they guessed wrong. Maybe next time!

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.