Blood moon mesmerises stargazers and enthusiasts

Bhubaneswar: Stargazers and astronomy enthusiasts witnessed a rare celestial spectacle of a total lunar eclipse on Sunday night. From city rooftops to village courtyards, enthusiasts and curious onlookers gathered to watch Earth's satellite transform into a glowing reddish orb or ‘blood moon'.

The eclipse began at 9:57pm, with the totality phase starting from 11pm onwards. The blood moon was clearly visible for more than an hour.

"This was one of the most stunning sights I ever saw. When the moon turned red, it felt like magic unfolding in the sky," said Swastika Mishra, a Class IX student, who watched the eclipse with her parents here.

"I took my children to witness the eclipse and explained the science behind it. They were fascinated. It's not every day you get to see such a wonder with your own eyes," said Rukmini Panda, a homemaker, who earlier expressed disappointment at the lack of planetarium arrangements but was delighted to watch the spectacle from her terrace.

Former deputy director of Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Subhendu Pattnaik, who hosted an online live screening, said, "A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth comes between the Sun and moon and Earth's shadow falls on the moon. When sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere and scatters, only some wavelengths reach the moon. This creates a tangent spectrum or atmospheric rainbow effect where five colours — velvet, blue, green, yellow and red — get filtered, but usually, the dominant reddish-orange light reaches the moon, giving it a reddish appearance during the eclipse."

"Watching the moon slowly slip into Earth's shadow was surreal. It made me feel how small we are in the vast cosmos," said Debashis Nayak, an IT professional.

At Puri Jagannath Temple, special rituals were observed, with the doors of the sanctum sanctorum closed during the eclipse hours and reopened after traditional purification rites.