Dedicated sky watchers were rewarded on Sunday night, Eastern Standard Time, with a supermoon in full eclipse.
The celestial show, which occurred for an hour just after 10 p.m. ET on Sunday night, could be viewed from the Americas, Europe, Africa, parts of Asia and the east Pacific. It is a rare event that hasn't happened since 1982 and won't happen again until 2033.
A supermoon takes place when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit, and the eclipse means it is covered entirely in the Earth's shadow. It can be seen when the sun, Earth and an extra-large moon line up. The supermoon was lit up with an eery red light due to sunlight being refracted through the Earth's atmosphere and onto the moon's surface.
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.
#SuperBloodMoon in its partial phases over #Iowa. Taken from my front yard. #LunarEclipse #iawx #Supermoon pic.twitter.com/hExgs0KOoH— Epic Cosmos (@EpicCosmos) September 28, 2015
#supermoon #lunareclipse from Winchester (all credit to my Dad who set up the camera, I just hit the button!) pic.twitter.com/JSAdjjkEy0— Jen Gupta (@jen_gupta) September 28, 2015
There it is, the #bloodredsupermoon A photo posted by Lance Ulanoff (@lanceulanoff) on Sep 27, 2015 at 7:13pm PDT
