Amateur astronomers trained their telescopes on the Moon to take advantage of its closeness to planet Earth in the city on Monday.
Devotees of Goddess Kanakadurga got the best view of the Supermoon from atop the Indrakeeladri hill. Many from the congested One Town thronged the Prakasam Barrage to get a good view. The citizens got on to their terraces to enjoy the view that was said to be seven per cent larger and 15 per cent brighter.
Astronomers said viewers had got the closest glimpse of the satellite since 1948, which is 68 years ago. The distance of Vijayawada from the Moon was a minimum of 3,56,509 km ( 2,21,524 miles) when the satellite came closest to Earth, according to a Moon distance calculator. The satellite will not get this close to the planet again until November 25, 2034.
The Moon was at perigee (nearest point) from Earth on Monday. Its distance to Earth varies. The two extreme points of the orbit each month are known as the lunar perigee and apogee. Though it revolves around the earth, the distance between the two bodies keeps changing because the orbit of the satellite is elliptical. Besides the Moon all planets, comets and asteroids in the Solar system have an approximately elliptical orbits around the Sun. It is only approximate because the ellipse the celestial body traces in any single orbit does not end exactly where it begins due to precession (changes in the orientation of the rotational axis of the rotating body).
