New Delhi: Avid sky watchers had a good time watching a celestial show, the lunar eclipse that took place early on Sunday.

The earth’s shadow swept past the moon turning a yellow shining full moon into a dim red one, and finally blackening it out of view.

The awesome spectacle of the moon vanishing totally was visible all over the country, including the national Capital.

In the Capital, the swirling monsoon clouds turned spoilsport for avid star gazers at around 3 am. “After 3 a.m. eclipse was playing hide and seek, the sky was cloudy,” Nehru Planetarium’s Educator Anurag told PTI.

As the earth came in between the sun and the moon, its shadow first began sweeping across the moon at 23:53 p.m. blocking out much of its bright light. As the shadow descended gently, the moon’s face turned red and was finally hidden from view. The maximum partial eclipse was at about 2:40 a.m. when the shadow started disappearing slowly to make the moon partially visible.

The moon entered the penumbra stage at 23:53 p.m., while it entered the umbra stage at 1:01 a.m.

It came out of the umbra stage at 2:40 a.m. and finally left the penumbra stage at 5:27 a.m.

The magnitude of the eclipse was 0.813, meaning that it was an 81 per cent partial lunar eclipse. PTI

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