This coming Sunday, September 27th a rare occurrence will take place in the skies above Habersham County. Weather permitting, the final lunar clipse of the 2014-2015 tetrad (a sequence of four consecutive lunar eclipses) will grace the heavens. This will be an excellent eclipse to view since, instead of starting in the middle of the night, the partial eclipse will begin promptly at 9:07PM, with the moon entering totality by 10:11PM. The total eclipse will last for an exceptionally long time (1hr 12min) ending at 11:23PM, and the partial eclipse will conclude early Monday morning at 12:27AM.
In addition to being an eclipse, this full moon will also be a “supermoon”. Since the moon’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle, it comes closer to Earth during some full moons, and this will be one of the best. A “supermoon” is any moon that is full when it is at or very near it’s closest approach or “perigee”. At perigee, the moon looks about 7% larger than average and 14% larger than at its smallest. It is also noticeably brighter by about 16% over average. A “supermoon” eclipse is incredibly rare and the next one won’t occur until 2039, so be sure to cross your fingers for clear skies.
The next total lunar eclipse in general visible from Habersham won’t occur until January of 2019, so if you miss this one you’ll have a long wait. All is not lost, though, as a total solar eclipse is drawing ever nearer with August 21, 2017 picking up a few extra minutes of darkness over the area.
So…. I’ll be keeping an extra-close eye on the weather for Sunday night and keep you in the loop on the latest. As of now things don’t look so hot (ok, they look really, really bad), but keep your fingers crossed and remember:
9:07PM- Partial Lunar Eclipse begins
10:11PM- Total Eclipse begins
11:23PM- Total Eclipse ends
12:27AM Monday morning- Partial Eclipse ends
Everyone have an excellent day and keep tabs on Now Habersham for the latest news about the eclipse.
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Original article: “Supermoon” Eclipse 2015.