A rare 'super blood moon eclipse' in the early hours of next Monday the 28th September will have amateur and professional astronomers excitedly training their telescopes at the heavens.

From around 3.00am onwards the moon will darken as the shadow of the earth, or Umbra, will slowly pass over our nearest heavenly neighbour and take on a rusty red appearance of what is known as a 'blood moon'-when light is bent through our own atmosphere.

This is the same natural effect called 'Rayleigh scattering' which also makes our sunsets a reddish colour-as the moon will only be lit by our own sunset-its appearance will be have a 'reddish' tinge.

The moon itself will be brighter than usual and will appear larger-in fact it will be look 14% bigger-being in its 'Perigee' phase at the time,this is called a 'Supermoon'.

As it will be the fourth eclipse in the last two years-this is collectively is known as the 'Tetra'.

In ancient texts many religious scholars have linked 'blood moons' and the 'Tetra' to important doomsday style disasters that have followed just after such an event.

Even today modern 'religious soothsayers' warn of terrible consequences post eclipse using a quotation from the Bible: "The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes”.

The last lunar eclipse was in March 2007 and despite any doom and gloom the Reading Chronicle will defy them all and have a picture special and report on the 'blood moon' in next weeks paper.