The moon offered a double spectacle early this morning. Because of its non-circular orbit, there was a full moon particularly close to our home planet – and also a partial lunar eclipse.
“The moon moves around the earth on an elliptical orbit and therefore comes close to it once a month. Sometimes this coincides with the full moon,” Uwe Pilz, chairman of the Association of Star Friends based in Bensheim in southern Hesse, explained to the German Press Agency.
As the stargazers had predicted, the moon’s disk should be darkened in the upper right between 4:13 and 5:16 a.m. 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 forecast was good
According to the Hamburg Planetarium, however, only 9.1 percent of the moon should be obscured. The rest of the moon’s disk will appear as if covered by a gray veil, they said.
The weather forecast was good – and so were the chances of a good view of the particularly large moon with a partial lunar eclipse. A meteorologist from the German Weather Service (DWD) had predicted that the night would be mostly clear.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240918-930-235690/1
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