Did you see the Super Blood Moon?

A supermoon occurs when the Moon is in the closest part of its orbit to Earth, meaning it appears larger in the sky. A total lunar eclipse coinciding with a “supermoon” hasn’t happened for 33 years, and won’t be repeated again for another 18 years. At this point, the moon is only 225,000 miles from the Earth.

The weather over Bolton stayed mainly clear, enabling skywatchers to witness a moon 14 per cent larger than usual on Sunday night into Monday morning, September 27-28.

Observers from the western half of North America, the rest of Europe and Africa, the Middle East and South Asia were the ones expected to only see a partial eclipse.

Dedicated sky watchers were rewarded on Sunday night, Eastern Standard Time, with a supermoon in full eclipse.

What is a Supermoon lunar eclipse?

The Moon, appearing next to a statue on the Alexander III bridge, in a dim red colour, is covered by the Earth’s shadow during a total lunar eclipse over Paris.

Anyone staying up to see the red moon was treated to “quite an unusual sight”, according to Society for Popular Astronomy vice president Robin Scagell.

In the last 17 months, there have been four lunar eclipses, so these aren’t completely rare.

The sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere was filtered and refracted in such a way that the green to violet light on the spectrum was scattered more strongly than the red light. “You always want to see the eclipse because they’re always very different”, said astronomer Edwin Krupp, the director of the hilltop landmark.

Noah Petro, scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said that the “combination of a supermoon and eclipse is just planetary dynamics”, notes Fox59.