PUNE: The first full moon of 2018 on Tuesday will also be a supermoon.
When the moon is closest to Earth, it appears bigger and brighter—a supermoon. It appears about 14% bigger and about 30% brighter than the normal full moon as seen from Earth. In India, it would be best to see the moon setting over the horizon early on January 3.
Director of Nehru Planetarium Arvind
Paranjpye said, "The moon orbits Earth in an elliptical format and its distance from Earth keeps changing. The closest point is called perigee and the farthest point in the orbit is called apogee. In about one hour, the distance between Earth and Moon changes by about 667 km."
On January 2, the moon will reach its perigee at 3.34pm. Its distance from Earth would be 3,56,565 km and it will be 99.9% illuminated by sunlight. The full moon phase comes about 4.5 hours later at 7.54pm. At that time the moon will be 3,56,846 km from earth.
"Actually, the best time to watch the super moon (or for that matter any full moon or Sun) would be when it is rising or setting, that is when the moon is closer to the horizon. Normally, we see the full moon rising above the eastern horizon. But this time it would be best to see the moon setting over western horizon in the early morning. But if people miss this setting moon then rising moon on January 2 would also be as beautiful," Paranjpye said.
Zero Shadow In Some Places
The full moon is bright enough to cast a shadow. On the night of January 1, people living close to 20 degree latitude will see the shadows of vertical objects disappear for a while as the moon passes overhead. This is a supermoon zero shadow.
Places close to the 20 degree latitude are Puri, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Bhawanipatana, Bhadravati, Chandrapur, Pusad, Jalna, Aurangabad and Nashik. Places north and south of this line where one can feel the moon overhead are
Raipur, Durg, Nagpur, Yavatmal, Amravati, Bhusawal, Beed, Ahmednagar, Pune, Mumbai and Surat
Lunar Eclipse Coming Up
A total lunar eclipse on January 31 awaits skywatchers. This will be the second full moon in a month, which is called a blue moon.
