The second installment in the supermoon trilogy captivating Kiwi stargazers this summer, the so-called "Wolf Moon", has risen with the beginning of the new year.
Footage of a huge grey full-moon illuminating a clear Wellington night was captured by photographer Matthew Arun from Brooklyn at 8pm on New Year's Day.
"It included a lot of planning and researching of the location to get the moon in line with the wind turbine and the weather gods had to be kind too," Mr Arun said.
"After shooting the first video of moon rise from Wellington, I drove to Wairarapa at midnight to shoot the moon setting, ignoring the weather warning and to try my luck. But it payed off at the end, and was worth the effort."
NASA has named the phenomenon as the "supermoon triliogy" because on three separate occasions during December and January, a larger and brighter moon than usual will appear in the night's sky.
The first supermoon appeared for a three day period beginning December 5, 2017.
This current supermoon officially rose on January 2 2018 and has been dubbed the "Wolf Moon". NASA says it will be the biggest and brightest moon of 2018.
The third installment is forecast for January 31, 2018.
Supermoons occur roughly every 14 months and appear about 14 per cent larger than a normal moon, with brightness up a whopping 30 per cent.
The explanation for the phenomenon is that the moon actually orbits around the Earth in an elliptical shape, not a perfect circle, so sometimes it's closer to us than at other times.
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