Blue Moon, Blood Moon, Super Moon and Lunar Eclipse

[Eric Mc]

Today we have a rare combination of lunar events all happening at more or less the same time -

Blue Moon - two full moons in one calendar month

Blood Moon/Eclipse - lunar eclipse which should look red (unfortunately, the eclipse is not visible in the UK or Europe)

Super Moon - the full moon coincides with the moon's closes approach to earth

[Eric Mc]

Just popped up over the rooftops of the houses across the road. Looks quite impressive - although the moon always looks bigger when low down.

[Eric Mc]

Simpo Two said:

I don't get all the excitement. The moon has been doing exactly the same thing for millions of years. It orbits the Earth. It looks a bit bigger when it's nearer, and a bit red when there's dust in the atmosphere. Why suddenly all this hype? It's just the fking moon!

It wasn't that big a deal really, but the astronomical community likes to encourage the average citizen to "look up" and therefore make the most of relatively rare phenomenon.

As explained in my opening post, having three lunar phenomenon all happening in a 24 hour period is fairly rare.

The increase in size of the moon when it is at perigee is not really that obvious (it's about 10% bigger in realty) but the APPARENT increase when it is low in the sky is a well known phenomenon and is usually referred to as "The Moon Illusion". It was the subject of a very interesting "Sky at Night" episode back in the 1970s.