Early risers were rewarded with clear skies for the super blood moon which was present in Irish skies on Monday morning.
Skies were clear in the eastern half of the country for the lunar eclipse which peaked between 4.41am and 5.43am Irish time.
(In pictures: The super blood moon in Ireland and across the world)
#bloodmoon Worth getting up for... pic.twitter.com/wUmqD8FfZi
— Art O'Leary (@ArtOLeary) January 21, 2019
Contributors to the Astronomy Ireland website reported being able to see the eclipse in its entirety in Dublin, Wicklow and Waterford. Others reported variable levels of cloud with many on the west coast not being able to see it at all.
Amateur photographer Liam Mulligan got up by his own admission at "silly o'clock".
He took a shot of the blood red moon from his back garden in Artane, Co Dublin. He has titled the photograph "Before the Darkness".
“This shot was taken just before total eclipse. I was lucky to witness about two maybe three minutes of total eclipse and then the clouds arrived. This brought the amazing shoot to an end. In some ways it was no harm as a hot cup of coffee was badly needed,” he said.
The diffusion of light from the Earth’s shadow made the moon appear to be red in the sky – hence the term blood moon.
This was no ordinary blood moon, rare enough as they are – it was a blood wolf moon.
Perigee
The super extends to the size of the moon which will appear huge in Irish skies because it is at its perigee or closest to the Earth in its orbit.
The wolf extends to the traditional name for the full moon in January. It is so called because wolves tended to howl at the moon during January as they were ravenous with hunger during the winter months.
It is also being called the "Trump moon" as it marks the halfway point in the Trump presidency. Mr Trump was born during a blood moon on June 14th, 1946.
The coincidence was too much for YouTube pastor Paul Begley who suggested it heralds the end of days.
“Is his a sign? Is this a harbinger for America?” Begley said in a YouTube video posted Sunday. “It seems like the prophetic scriptures of the Bible are starting to play out right on the world stage, right before our very eyes.”
