Seeing Red Once in a Blue Moon

This evening was gorgeous in an astronomical sense. There's a saying "once in a blue moon", which means rarely. Tonight we had "once in a red moon" which is I suppose even rarer. It rose just before sunset and literally glowed red because it was in the midst of a total eclipse and the earth's shadow lay firmly across the almost full moon's disc. To make things even more stunning, moonrise was accompanied by Mars, the red planet, nearby. So there were two bright red objects in the heavens quite close to each other. Mars is currently closer to Earth than at any time over the next few decades and was bright that it was the first celestial object to appear as the sun set.

The first photo was taken with my ageing digital camera, which was difficult to hold steady as it pointed into the sky and had a long time-lapse in low light. It does not do justice to the view, but there it is. The red moon is in the right hand corner and Mars is the small object towards the top left

At around 6.30 pm the moon began to emerge from the Earth's shadow and, just like the sun displays its diamond jewel on exiting the Earth's shadow, The moon also became bedecked with a streak of sunlight on its left margin. Apologies again for the photography - my hand shook at the vital moment - but you can see a sliver of sunlight on the moon's rim.

The whole scene was made extra impressive because we had a crystal clear evening and none of the dust and smoke of the northern hemisphere. If you were to visit us you'd be amazed at the quality of the light we enjoy.

AS