This Sunday night, stargazers and sky-watchers will have their eyes glued to the sky to witness the first and the last visible supermoon of 2017.
As per astronomers, the supermoon phenomenon is extremely popular with sky-watchers and has sky watchers community excited across the globe.
“The supermoon occurs when the full moon is closest to the earth, thus appearing bigger and brighter. During this period the moon appears about 14 percent bigger and about 30 percent brighter than normal full moon as seen from Earth,” explained Arvind Paranjpye, Director of Nehru Planetarium.
Interestingly, supermoons have different names based on months and the ones occurring in December are called the ‘Cold Moon’.
He shared that enthusiasts can look at the supermoon on December 3 (which is the full moon day) and during this time the distance between the earth and moon would be around 3.75 lakh kilometres.
“The moon revolves round the Earth in an called elliptical orbit, thus as the Moon goes round the Earth its distance from the Earth keeps varying and at the point where the distance becomes closest the moon appears the biggest,” shared Paranjpye adding that, however, supermoon is not the technical term (the technical term used is perigee syzygy) but more of a term coined to make this event sound simpler to understand for the common man.
As per the Indian calender, the full moon (purnima) is on December 3 the supermoon effect will be seen on December 4 too, Paranjpye added.
Speaking about one of the best places to view and enjoy supermoon in Mumbai, he said it certainly was the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) structure as the moon appears to be extremely beautiful to photograph behind the well lit heritage building.
“I mostly try and shoot it from there but another place is the Gateway of India too,” he said.
Meanwhile, some weather observers are keeping their fingers crossed as they believe that the only dampener could be the cloudy sky due to the cyclone.
"In fact, Mumbai city has a huge light pollution problem that takes the sheen away and one should try and watch the moon in a countryside or far off from the glaring lights to actually understand how beautiful the moon actually looks," said a Mumbai based stargazer who is planning a trip to Vangani a town near Mumbai this Sunday.
As per experts, it was the supermoon of November 2016 when the moon came the closest to earth since the one recorded in 1948.
