The weather did not provide ideal conditions on the night of Wednesday, January 31, for keen amateur photographers and astronomers to get a glimpse of the super-rare Super Blue Blood Moon.
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However, Peter Langdowne from Tinonee managed to do what most people couldn’t – get a few photographs of the event.
“I just stood at the back of the camera and waited for an opening in the cloud – and there weren’t many openings – and I got a few shots,” Peter said.
Peter is disappointed he was unable to get photos of the total eclipse, but he did manage to get some photos before it occurred.
Peter used a Pentax K5 camera coupled with a seven and a half inch Maksutov Newtonian telescope at his home observatory. The telescope was on an equatorial mount tracking with the moon against the earth’s rotation.
The Super Blue Blood Moon occurs when three separate celestial events - a supermoon, a blue moon and a full lunar eclipse - happen simultaneously.
Breaking it down, a supermoon occurs when the moon is at or near its closest point to earth, making it appear much bigger and brighter.
A blue moon is the second blue moon in a calendar month.
A blood moon is named for the red colour of the moon during a eclipse, which is caused by the sun’s light refracting off the moon’s surface.
The last time this ‘supermoon trilogy’ occurred was in 1866 and it will not be seen from earth again until December 31, 2028, meaning no human alive has ever seen this event before.