By Iain Todd

Published: Wednesday, 18 September 2024 at 08:31 AM

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This week’s Harvest Super Moon and partial lunar eclipse has been imaged by photographers across the globe, eager to capture the beauty of the bright full Moon in the evening sky.

17/18 September 2024’s full Moon was a supermoon, the Harvest Moon and also a partial lunar eclipse, making quite a spectacle for those with clear skies who were able to step outside and observe it.

The term ‘Harvest Moon’ is an informal nickname for the full Moon closest to the September equinox, and is historically named as such because of its proximity to harvest time.

The term ‘supermoon’ is the informal term for what is, astronomically speaking, a ‘perigee syzygy Moon’, meaning a Moon at the closest point to Earth in its orbit (perigee), and which is one of three celestial objects in alignment (syzygy), in this case the Sun, Earth and the Moon.

Supermoons may technically be bigger than a ‘regular’ full Moon, but the difference in apparent size is so small as to be essentially imperceptible to the human eye.

Nevertheless, supermoons are a popular phenomena across the world, as the sight of a big, bright full Moon in the sky is always mesmerising, whether the Moon is at perigee or not.

But to top off this week’s Super Harvest moon, in the early hours of 18 September the full Moon underwent a partial lunar eclipse, whereby Earth’s shadow was cast upon a small portion of the Moon’s surface, causing a subtle darkening effect.

Unsurprisingly, astrophotographers and Moongazers were out in force this week, aiming to photograph and observe the lunar spectacle.

Here are some of the best images we’ve seen so far.

Did you capture images of the 17/18 September Super Harvest Moon or partial lunar eclipse? Send your images to us via contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com

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