Spectacular celestial event: supermoon lunar eclipse

The supermoon lunar eclipse seen from Castleton as a plane passes

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A rare spectacular celestial event that has not occurred for 30 years took place in the early hours of this morning. The Moon turned a rusty hue and seemed larger in the sky as a total lunar eclipse coincided with an astronomical event called a supermoon.

This was the first total lunar eclipse since 2008 where the whole eclipse was visible from the UK.

The Moon was seen passing through the Earth's shadow in the early hours of this morning.

In a total lunar eclipse, the Earth, Sun and Moon are almost exactly in line and the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun.

The eclipse started at 01:11am, when the Moon entered the lightest part of the Earth's shadow, known as the penumbra. At 03:11am, the Moon completely entered the umbra - the inner dark corpus of our planet's shadow.

The point of greatest eclipse occured at 03:47am, when the Moon was closest to the centre of the umbra.

A supermoon coinciding with a lunar eclipse will not occur again until 2033.

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