NICOSIA - People all over Cyprus will get the chance to see the moon at its brightest and fullest in the early hours of Sunday morning.
According to scientists at NASA, the moon will reach perigee — the closest it gets to the Earth as it makes its elliptical orbit around the planet — meaning the moon will be about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the other full moons of 2012.
Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon's orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee).
A perigee full Moon brings with it extra-high ‘perigean tides,’ but this is nothing to worry about, according to America's NOAA space-weather predicting agency.
In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual.
'To view this weekend's supermoon to best effect, look for it just after it rises or before it sets, when it is close to the horizon. There, you can catch a view of the moon behind buildings or trees, an effect which produces an optical illusion, making the moon seem even larger than it really is,' said Space.com.