By Steve Neville
The final supermoon of 2020 will be on view for all to see tonight.
It will be the last supermoon visible until April 2021.
Today will be the best day to see it, but the moon will be “almost as good on Friday”, according to Astronomy Ireland.
The moon rises at 9.15pm on Thursday and 10.50pm on Friday.
The full moon in May is also known as the “flower moon”, signifying the flowers that bloom during the month.
Astronomy Ireland is encouraging lunar fans to look to the east on Thursday evening.
“This is one of the closest full moons of the year, hence the name supermoon," said David Moore, Founder of Astronomy Ireland magazine.
“There will be a second phenomenon known as 'The Moon Illusion' which makes the already bloated full moon look even bigger to the human eye, perhaps twice as large as normal.”
The Moon Illusion, an optical illusion, makes the human eye-brain combination think a moon low on the horizon is much closer than it actually is.
Mr Moore has also called for people to send the magazine their pictures of the supermoon.
“Many people get very creative around the time of Supermoons and we want to publish the best of these photos in Astronomy Ireland magazine,” he said.
According to Nasa: “The Maine Farmer's Almanac first published 'Indian' names for the full moons in the 1930s.
"According to this almanac, as the full moon in May and the second full moon of spring, the Algonquin tribes of what is now the northeastern United States called this the Flower Moon, for the flowers that are abundant this time of year. Other names include the Corn Planting Moon and the Milk Moon."
Dr Greg Brown, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in the UK, told the PA news agency: “The moon’s orbit around the Earth is not entirely circular, instead a slightly flattened circle or ellipse.
“As such, it is sometimes closer to and sometimes further away from the Earth.
“While definitions vary, a supermoon typically occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon being within the closest 10% of its orbit.”
