Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Cloud cover obscures ‘biggest moon of the year’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Star gazers in the city were robbed of a rare celestial spectacle on Thursday when cloud cover obscured the biggest and brightest full moon of the year.

Hundreds of enthusiastic citizens turned their gaze skywards to watch the moon in is full glory, only to be disappointed.

Except for a brief window immediately after dusk, the moon remained behind the cloud curtain till late in the night.

On Thursday night, the moon was on the near side of its elliptical orbit around the earth, taking it 48,000 km closer.

This made it 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than other full moons when viewed from earth.

Several families who had made a beeline to the Sanghumukham beach to watch the spectacle, returned home disappointed.

“It was a total let down. We had prepared ourselves for the heavenly display. Maybe we’ll have better luck next year”, said Padmakumar, a marketing executive who was at the beach along with his family till 9 pm.

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