Pics: Rajesh Mangalore, Dubai

Dubai, Sep 28 (Agencies): The moon bathed in blood-red light of a total eclipse - the Blood Moon - lit up the early morning sky, if only briefly in the wee hours of Monday September 28.

However, heavy fog across parts of Dubai then made it next to impossible to see the Blood Moon with the naked eye.

In fact, the fog grew so heavy that even the street lights could not be seen.

Several star-gazers, out to see the 'Blood Moon' could only glimpse the phenomenon for a brief period as the effect was soon fogged out of view to the naked eye.

The celestial show, visible from the Americas, Europe, Africa, west Asia and the east Pacific, was the result of the sun, Earth and a larger-than-life, extra-bright moon lining up for just over an hour from 0211 GMT.

During that moment, the moon was at its closest orbital point to Earth, called perigee, while also in its brightest phase.

The resulting "supermoon" appeared 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than when at apogee, the farthest point - which is about 31,000 miles (49,900 kilometres) from perigee.

Unusually, the Earth took position in a straight line between the moon and the sun, blotting out the direct sunlight that normally makes our satellite glow whitish-yellow.

But some light still crept around the Earth's edges and was filtered through its atmosphere, casting an eerie red light that creates the blood moon.

The moon travels to a similar position every month, but the tilt of its orbit means it normally passes above or below the Earth's shadow - so most months have a full moon minus eclipse.

The last super blood moon, only the fifth recorded since 1900, was in 1982, according to the US space agency NASA, and the next will not be until 2033.