Supermoon Lunar Eclipse: How To See The Incredible Event In The UK

How To See Tonight's Supermoon Eclipse (And Survive The Accompanying Apocalypse)

Forget having an early night tonight, you'll be missing one of the most incredible astronomical coincidences to grace our skies in years.

In the early hours of Monday morning a blood-red "supermoon" will - weather permitting - bathe Earth in a rather eerie glow.

The rare event is a result of a lunar eclipse coinciding with the moon being at its perigree - the point at which it is the closest to Earth that it comes in its orbit.

A supermoon in August as seen in Turkey

The last time this happened was in 1982 and wont happen again until 2032.

The moon will be 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than it is when it is at its furthest point from us.

Because of the way in which light reflected from the Moon is scattered by the Earth's atmosphere and turns a dark red.

Tonight's #SuperBloodMoon will be visible from the Americas, Europe & Africa tonight. Here's when to look: pic.twitter.com/Lt93nGahzr

— NASA (@NASA) September 27, 2015

The supermoon eclipse will be visible from the UK from 01:10 on Monday morning and will last until 06:24.

A full eclipse will be seen from 3:11 to 04:24.

As with any unusual space-related event there are those who are assuming the end of the world will also occur.

This will be the fourth Blood Moon within 18 months – a beautiful, rare and harmless phenomenon astronomers term a 'tetrad’.

There are some minority groups of Christians however who believe the Blood Moon “prophecy” is connected to the return of Jesus, a Rapture that will see Christians taken to heaven and Armageddon.

Several books have been published about the phenomenon, with authors noting a Bible passage that refers to the moon turning into blood. “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord,” Joel 2:31 says.

In the New Testament, Acts 2:20 echoes the same doom: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord.”

All in all, if the dates of these events tally 28 September promises to be one heck of a Monday.

If you are troubled by these interpretations, perhaps the words of Gemma Lavender, features editor for All About Space magazine will soothe you.

Lavender told the Liverpool Echo: "There are claims that, with the moon getting closer to Earth, that there is an increased risk of events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - this is false."

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