For those observers that were unfortunately clouded out, NASA’s online live streaming of the event broadcast from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with a live feed from the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California, proved enormously popular.
Observers in the British Isles have to wait until the evening of Friday, 27 July 2018 for the next ‘normal’ total lunar eclipse visible from these shores, while the next totally eclipsed supermoon entails a slightly longer wait: 8 October 2033.
On the night of 12-13 December, the waxing gibbous Moon glides in front of the loose open star cluster known as the Hyades in the constellation of Taurus, culminating in the occultation of bright star Aldebaran around 5:24am GMT for observers in the British Isles. In North America, the event occurs at a more sociable hour late into the evening of 12 December.
If clear skies persist, observers in the UK can view four naked-eye planets between now and the end of the month. Brightest planet Venus is visible low in the west some 45 minutes after sunset, while the waxing Moon is your celestial pointer to Jupiter, Saturn and Mars between 21 and 28 July at midnight.
On 31 January we experience the second full Moon of the month, which by one definition makes it a Blue Moon. However, for observers in north-western North America, Oceania, East Asia or central and eastern Russia, this full Moon will have a decidedly reddish hue since it will be immersed in the Earth’s shadow during a total lunar eclipse.
