A supermoon is on its way and you’ll be able to get a glimpse of it tonight (April 27) in Australia. Known as the “pink” moon in North America, the supermoon actually refers to the position of the planet.
Sydney Observatory describes a supermoon as a “Full Moon that occurs very close in time to when the Moon is closest in distance to Earth during its elliptical orbit about our planet. The actual definition is unclear and almost completely arbitrary”.
The actual time in which the moon is directly opposite the sun (and thus considered a supermoon) will happen just after midday around Australia — except in Western Australia where it will occur at 11 am. Then, according to the ABC, 12 hours later, the moon will come within 357,378 kilometres from Earth and will be visible for you to see in all its glory. Astronomers call this event a “perigee-syzygy moon”.
“The astronomical full moon is 12 hours away from perigee (Earth), but to the casual observer it makes no difference,” amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave told the ABC. “The moon that will be rising on the evening of the April 27 will be a full moon. It doesn’t matter that the astronomical full moon was earlier.”
The moon will look super bright as it rises above the horizon and will continue to shine brightly as the night goes on and as it slowly gets closer to perigee. But, there probably won’t be a huge difference between the size of this supermoon and a regular full moon.
“Unless you’ve got really good eyesight and a very good memory of what previous apogee full moons look like, you won’t see very much difference,” Dr Musgrave said. “But if you are measuring the Moon in a telescope, you’ll see it get bigger as it gets higher in the sky [and] as it gets closer to actual perigee.”
To view the supermoon, Gizmodo Australia has broken down the following timings for moonrise and moonset in each capital city:
Sydney: 5:33pm — 7:18am
Melbourne: 5:53pm — 7:51am
Canberra: 5:40pm — 7:29am
Brisbane: 5:33pm — 7:00am
Hobart: 5:36pm — 7:52am
Adelaide: 5:53pm — 7:43am
Darwin: 6:50pm — 7:43am
Perth: 6:01pm — 7:43am
