A rare event is set to delight moon-watchers in Huddersfield. Since 1900, a supermoon lunar eclipse has happened just five times. The stars – or, more accurately, a star, planet and moon – will align perfectly to create a rare supermoon lunar eclipse on Sunday night.
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For the first time in 33 years, a “supermoon” will occur at the same time as a full lunar eclipse, said Michael Allen, astronomy instructor at Washington State University.
Scientists say it will be visible from across Europe, Africa, North and South America, and some parts of West Asia and the eastern Pacific.
This is the last total lunar eclipse visible anywhere on Earth until 2018, according to Sky and Telescope.
There’s a total lunar eclipse this weekend. This supermoon will find our celestial neighbour nearly at its closest point to Earth and will appear about 14% larger than normal. The reason for this optical variation is that the moon’s orbit is elliptical; one side of it is closer to Earth. Although still about 220,000 miles away, this full moon will look bigger and brighter than usual. Earth’s shadow will begin to dim the supermoon slightly beginning at 8:11 p.m. EDT.
The Earth will then begin to cast an eerie shadow over the moon, as it blocks the light from reaching the surface of our orbiting rocky satellite. This will last 1 hour and 12 minutes. A supermoon can appear up to 30 per cent brighter than at the earth-moon apogee (when the two bodies are furthest from one another). “But I love an eclipse because the moon can take on that reddish-orange color”.
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It won’t happen until 2033 – so that’s another 18 years to wait. “The nice thing about it is if you can see the moon, you can see the eclipse”.
