2024-09-03 17:58:01
In September there are two celestial events on the same day: amateur astronomers can enjoy a supermoon and a partial lunar eclipse.
Fans of special astronomical events should mark September 18th in their calendars. Not only will there be a full moon on this night, but due to its close distance to Earth it will also appear particularly bright and large. Astronomers call this a supermoon.
As if that wasn’t spectacular enough, there is another fascinating spectacle to be seen this night: a partial lunar eclipse. This happens when the moon enters the Earth’s shadow and is partially darkened.
“The natural phenomenon begins at 2:39 a.m., when the moon moves into the Earth’s penumbra,” says Björn Voss, director of the Hamburg Planetarium. However, this change is initially barely perceptible to our eyes. “It is not until 4:12 a.m. that our satellite reaches the umbra,” says Voss.
Because only 9.1 percent of the moon will be obscured, the rest of the moon’s disk will appear as if it were covered by a gray veil. According to Voss, the moon will leave the Earth’s umbra at 5:17 a.m. and finally the penumbra at 6:49 a.m.
Anyone who misses the event on the night of September 18th will have to wait until March of next year. That’s when the next partial lunar eclipse will take place. But it will be even more spectacular in a year on September 7th, 2025, when the next total lunar eclipse will be visible.
According to the Hamburg Planetarium, the full moon in September has different names. “On the one hand, it is called the harvest moon, which alludes to the beginning of the harvest season, and on the other hand, it is called the autumn moon,” it says. The latter indicates the upcoming change of seasons. The so-called equinox on September 22 marks the astronomical beginning of autumn in the northern hemisphere.