Monday, October 5, 2015

Blood Moon from Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuram

Blood Moon is sometimes used to describe a Total Lunar Eclipse. When the Earth casts its shadow on a Full Moon and eclipses it, the Moon may get a red glow.

Below is a composite photograph by me, which shows how a Blood Moon will look like when viewed from Kerala, Southern State of INDIA.

The image is taken in front of The World's Richest Temple Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temeple, Thiruvananthapuram Kerala. 

In recent years, the term Blood Moon has been frequently used to refer to total lunar eclipses. Some sources suggest that the term stems from the Bible. Christian pastors Mark Blitz and John Hagee claim that the eclipses of the 2014-2015 lunar tetrad fulfill a Biblical prophecy of forthcoming difficult and trying times.

Astronomers do not use Blood Moon as a scientific term. However, it is possible that the term came to describe total lunar eclipses because of the reddish color the eclipsed Moon takes on during totality. This happens because of Rayleigh scattering, the same mechanism that causes colorful sunrises and sunsets.


The full Moon of September 27/28 is a Supermoon – the Moon will be closest to the Earth. or at its perigee, as it turns into a full Moon. A rising Super Full Moon can look larger and brighter to spectators on Earth.

Total eclipses of Super Full Moons are rare. According to NASA, they have only occurred 5 times in the 1900s – in 1910, 1928, 1946, 1964 and 1982. After the September 27/ 28, 2015 Total Lunar Eclipse, a Supermoon eclipse will not happen again for another 18 years, until October 8, 2033.


This is how Blood Moon from Trivandrum will look like.



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