If Tuesday night's harvest moon being a supermoon wasn't special enough, an added partial lunar eclipse should really grab astronomers' attention.
Tom Sobocan, with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in Windsor (RASC Windsor) noted that the full harvest supermoon will occur at 10:35 p.m. on Tuesday. From about 10:15 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. there will also be a partial lunar eclipse.
Sobocan said that there are specific parameters that must be met for an eclipse to happen.
"In order for a lunar or solar eclipse to take place, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth must be aligned at the same time that the Moon is crossing the plane of Earth's orbit and the Moon must be full (lunar eclipse) or new (solar eclipse)," he explained.
Unlike this summer's solar eclipse, which could only be seen from a small portion of the globe, Tuesday's lunar eclipse can be seen from about half of the earth.
If the sky is clear, people will be able to see the eclipse with their naked eye, through binoculars, or through a telescope.
"If the moon appears too bright through binoculars you can put on a pair of sunglasses. For a telescope, you should have an eyepiece filter when looking at the full moon," Sobocan suggested.
RASC Windsor will be holding its monthly meeting that same night from 7:30 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. at the Ojibway Nature Center on Matchett Road. There will be several presentations given, and then if the sky is clear, some members of the club will have their telescopes set up to observe the partial eclipse. Everyone is invited to participate.
There are some other celestial events to look forward to through the autumn and winter.
"We have several meteor showers to look forward to this year," Sobocan said, adding that planets are visible in the sky again. "Venus is an evening planet, setting in the Northwest shortly after sunset. Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are late-night and early-morning planets."