Night Sky Photography -- 08-31-2023 -- The Super Blue Moon & Orion Stars In Early Morning Hours

Good morning, fellow stargazers!

Today I had to wake up extra early -- about just over 90 minutes before sunrise in fact -- to capture my photographs of the second Full Moon and third Supermoon of August, 2023: the Blue Supermoon, or Super Blue Moon.

The reason I had to wait till the early hours to take the shots was due to extensive cloud cover from summer thunderstorms brought about as a result of the recent hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Thankfully those storms moved off about 5 AM Eastern Standard Time (EDT) and gave way to perfectly clear early morning skies, as you can see in my first shot.

Currently, the Super Blue Moon is 222,043 miles (or 357,344 kilometers) from the Earth, making it the closes of the four Supermoons this year -- which is why I was thankful to be able to capture some great photos of it.

The next two photos are close-up of the features of the Super Blue Moon showing all the larger craters and the dark gray "seas" on the visible Lunar surface that we see here on the Earth.

My final Full Moon photo is a wider shot of the Super Blue Moon along with the planet Saturn just above the tree lines.

Since I was up so early I turned my camera to the eastern sky where the Constellation Orion The Hunter was making his way back into the early morning sky.

In my final two photos I was able to capture all the major stars of Orion, as well as the nearby bright stars Aldebaran and Procyon.

That concludes my night sky offerings for the month of August 2023. I hope y'all enjoyed my photos as I continue to enjoy posting them for y'all.

Have a wonderful Dixie Day and y'all be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies.