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Swedes stay up to catch glimpse of supermoon

The Local Sweden
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Swedes stay up to catch glimpse of supermoon
The super blood moon above Turning Torso in Malmö. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Did you watch the supermoon? With clear skies across much of Sweden the rare celestial spectacle did not disappoint.

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If some of your colleagues at work in Sweden are looking sleepier than normal, it is probably because they stayed up late (or set their alarms early) to watch the supermoon.

“It was an awesome experience. It was very bright, it wasn't difficult to see it,” SVT's reporter Pontus Stenberg told the national broadcaster.


The lunar eclipse unfolding in Malmö in southern Sweden. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

The supermoon happens when the full moon reaches its closest point to Earth on its orbit around us, making it look both bigger and brighter than normal.

And on Monday the phenomenon coincided with a total lunar eclipse, which also saw the moon develop an impressively reddish colour at around 5am – a so-called 'blood moon'.


The red 'blood moon'. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

It was less than 10C in the morning, but hobby astronomers across Sweden put their thickest jumpers on to go outside and watch the spectacle as it began to unfold shortly before 3am, with many taking to social media to post pictures of the phenomenon.

“At this time of the year, when it's relatively warm at night and the stars are visible again after the summer people start to notice the sky more. It's really pleasing,” astronomer Robert Cumming at the Onsala observatory told SVT.

But many hopeful moon gazers in the Stockholm area were left disappointed as they woke up early on Monday only to find the night sky above the capital covered in clouds.

“The skies have been pretty much clear all over the country, with the exception of eastern Svealand [a large area in central Sweden], the mountains and parts of Norrbotten away from the coast. Stockholm has had bad luck, but the moon was possibly visible just north of Stockholm, like in Norrtälje. Otherwise, you were able to see it across the country,” Lisa Frost, meteorologist at Swedish weather institute SMHI, told the TT newswire.

If you missed it you will have to wait until 2033 for another chance at seeing a supermoon coincide with a total lunar eclipse, according to Nasa.

Did you snap any pictures of the super blood moon? Email them to us at [email protected].

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