Hunter’s Moon tonight: Stop by LU for free telescope viewing

Does a supermoon catch your fancy? If it does, and rightly so, then Thursday is when you visit Abhinav Gupta Bhawan of the Lucknow University’s astrology department to view the Hunter’s Moon, the closest full supermoon of the year.

Four telescopes will be set up there by Indira Gandhi Planetarium and UP Amateur Astronomers’ Club. No entry fee will be charged to view the giant moon and planets.

A scientific officer at Council of Science and Technology, Sumit Kumar Shrivastava said when the full moon is closest to the Earth it is then called a supermoon.

The term was first used in astronomy by renowned astronomer Richard Nolle in 1979, who said that supermoons can occur on both full moon and new moon days.

“A full moon or new moon becomes a supermoon when it occurs at the perigee (closest that a moon can come to the Earth within its orbit). In the supermoon phase, the celestial object appears about 40% larger and 30% brighter. It is called Hunter’s Moon in the past because hunters stocked food for winters in Octobers,” said Shrivastava.

He shared that the moon will be closest to Earth at 11.55 pm on Thursday. It will be approximately 3,51,519 kilometers away and in its apogee phase (farthest from Earth), this distance will increase to 4,06,161 kilometers on October 30.

“This will be the third of the four supermoons of the year. The next supermoon will be visible on November 15,” he added.