The Blood Supermoon

 So this phenomenon happened here in NZ last night but I decided to write about it today as it was an amazing thing to see. With the moon being in perigee (its closest point to the earth in its orbit) it means the moon has appeared very large for the last couple of months - hence the supermoon title it gets.

Add onto this the effect of a lunar eclipse where the earth passes between the sun and the full moon and its shadow moves across the face of the earth over a period of about 5 hours. When the earth is completely shadowing the moon the light from the sun spills around the edges and causes the moon to take on a reddish hue - hence the blood in the description.

We watched the eclipse startiing then kept checking until it was starting to look red. The light outside took on an eerie glow and and the light from the full moon was blocked out the stars and particulalry the Milky Way got brighter and brighter. 

It was freezing cold outside but so worth being able to see this phenomenon which will not happen again in my lifetime. I hope the kids remember seeing it and appreciate the relative rarity of it - even if they were squabbling at the time!! 

The photo credit goes to the Stardome Obeservatory. My daughter got some amazinf photos of the eclipse when it was starting but was unable to capture the full blood moon as we didn't have a tripod - maybe something to put on the birthday list!