Those in the United States, Europe, Africa and western Asia can view the coupling, weather permitting, Sunday night or early Monday. Total lunar eclipses are sometimes referred to as blood moons due to the reddish glow they give off. In autumn, the moon is also referred to as a harvest moon.
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The last supermoon total lunar eclipse occurred 33 years ago. Totality began at 9:11 p.m. and ended at approximately 10:23 p.m. central time. This is the fourth Blood Moon to appear in the last two years, while the next one will not be visible until the year 2033. It happens specifically when the Earth’s shadow completely covers the moon, causing it to dim and take on a yellowish hue.
“It could be a little hard to see that the moon appears larger than usual”, Johansson says.
During the moon’s perigee phase, the moon is 31,000 miles closer to the Earth than during its apogee phase.
A swollen supermoon is impressive on its own, but with the moon’s velvet coloring, it was a stunning sight in the night sky and people rushed to capture it from vantage points across the world.
The eclipse of the moon over Cork city with the cross on St. Joseph’s SMA Church, Wilton, in the foreground.
When the moon is at perigee (closest to earth), there is much more gravitational pull that contributes to higher tides and greater variation in the high and low tide.
According to NASA, the solar eclipses in March will be a total eclipse, as will the August 2017 eclipse.
The eclipse started at 01:11am, when the Moon entered the lightest part of the Earth’s shadow, known as the penumbra. This eclipse marks the end of a tetrad, or series of four total lunar eclipses set six months apart.
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NASA did their best to reassure everyone, saying tetrads were “a frequent occurrence in the current pattern of lunar eclipses”.
