KARACHI: If you were able to spare some time and look upwards on Monday at 6.52pm precisely, you couldn’t have missed the big orange-yellow disk staring back at you. This was no ordinary moon. It was the supermoon.

The moon on Monday evening was definitely bigger and brighter than usual. In fact it was 14 per cent bigger and 30pc brighter because it was very close to the Earth at the time.

The phenomenon last occurred in 1948 and will take place again on Nov 25, 2034. Monday’s supermoon though is said to be a record-breaking supermoon, the biggest one in 68 years, by astronomers and stargazers.

Abubaker Shekhani, an astronomy enthusiast and founding member of the Karachi Astronomers Society, watched the supermoon with about a hundred other people from the castor dome observatory in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. “It was the first time that many of the people were looking at the moon through a telescope. Since they are not used to doing it regularly, they couldn’t tell the difference, still all thought it was an excellent sight,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iqbal Xaidi, another enthusiast who likes taking photographs of heavenly bodies, climbed on the rooftop of his apartment building with his Nikon 701 and its 18-300mm lens and an Olympus OM-D EMI camera with 40-150 pro lens to take shots of the moon and upload on social media for whoever missed the beautiful scene.

Asked if he also took a selfie with the supermoon as it was a rare phenomena after all, he only laughed. “Actually I couldn’t,” he said. “My tripod was stolen recently when I was at the beach to photograph the sunset. Today’s supermoon pictures I took holding my camera in my hands, which cannot be as steady as a tripod after all, so no selfies,” he explained, adding that photographing the moon wasn’t as easy as taking pictures of the sunset or sunrise. “You have to work your camera manually to bring the moon into focus,” he said.

When very close to the earth, the strong force of attraction of the supermoon also results in high tides. Therefore the Met office had also advised the people of Karachi to remain careful when going to the beach around this time.

There were also many people who didn’t know about the supermoon at all. Tahira, who was at the seaside with her sisters, around the time the moon was at its brightest looked up and only uttered “oh that” before going back to enjoying her snacks.

“I had been receiving WhatsApp messages about the Super Moon over the weekend. I had been looking for it since Sunday,” said Shahzad Ahmed smiling from ear to ear at the sight.

Kazim, another fellow chasing his five-year-old daughter Abeeha at the beach, also managed to steal a glance up at the moon and exclaimed: “Subhan Allah!”

Published in Dawn November 15th, 2016