Supermoon and partial lunar eclipse "Tonight would have been worth a trip to the heights"

dpa

18.9.2024 - 07:41

A full moon close to the Earth with a partial eclipse: the Earth's satellite was a double eye-catcher in the early morning.

The moon offered a double spectacle early this morning. Due to its non-circular orbit, there was a full moon particularly close to our home planet - and also a partial lunar eclipse.

"Tonight would have been worth a trip to the heights", writes Meteo Switzerland on the short news service X.

"The moon orbits the Earth in an elliptical path and therefore comes close to it once a month. Sometimes this coincides with the full moon," Uwe Pilz, Chairman of the Association of Stargazers based in Bensheim in southern Hesse, told the German Press Agency.

Also from the Sch

As the stargazers had predicted, the moon's disk should be darkened between 4.13 and 5.16 a.m. in the upper right-hand corner. This partial lunar eclipse would be best seen at around 4.44 a.m., it was said in advance. During such an event, the moon crosses the Earth's orbit at the time of the full moon and partially enters the planet's umbra.

Weather prospects were good

According to Meteo Switzerland and the Hamburg Planetarium, however, only 9.1 percent of the moon should be covered. The rest of the moon's disk will appear to be covered by a grey veil, they said.

(SDA)