Astronomers, and astrophysics study outer space and its anomalies. Something usual for a moongazer is watching the size increase of the moon or lunar eclipses. A phenomenon called the super moon has made its appearance the night of September 27, but an eclipse also took place.
A Supermoon (http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-supermoon) occurs because the orbit of the moon is not a circle but an oval, and the activity mostly occurs when the moon reaches it’s total point closest to the earth.
A lunar eclipse (http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/total-lunar-eclipse.html) occurs when the sun, earth and moon pair to make an almost straight line, the earth’s shadow is reflected from the sun to the moon.
“Lunar eclipses aren’t that strange but being at the time when the moon what the closest to us and its orbit which is called perigee and having a lunar eclipse that we can see at the same time made it very special,” science teacher Marcy Clone said.
The night of Sunday, Sept. 27, both the super moon and the lunar eclipse appeared on the same night. Because of the shadow of the earth covering the moon, the eclipse appeared alongside the super moon. The change of the moon wasn’t completely black as it usually does when an eclipse appears, but a dark red making this called as the “Blood Moon”. This phenomenon had only happened 5 times since 1900’s and the next apparition for this Super Blood Moon will be at 2033.
“Not any project or work right now, we were just studying things about the moon and we were talking about solar eclipses and lunar eclipses and happen to be right around the same time so we were really fortunate to know what was going on.” Clone said.
To know more: Supermoon(http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/), Lunar Eclipse(http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list.html)
