Night Sky Photography -- 02-24-2024 -- Full Snow Moon & Regulus

Tonight I captured a couple of shots of the February Full Moon -- also known as the Full Snow Moon in North America -- along with the bright star, Regulus, in the evening sky.

Regulus is the brightest star in the Constellation Leo the Lion. Regulus appears singular to the human eye, but its actually a quadruple star system composed of four stars that are organized into two pairs. The Regulus system lies approximately 79 light years (or 24 parsecs) from the Sun.

The February Full Snow Moon is 2024’s farthest full micromoon for year at a distance of about 252,225 miles (or 405,917 kilometers) from the Earth. This is in contrast to the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, which is around 238,900 miles (or 384,472 km).

Night Sky Photography -- 07-03-2023 -- The First Of Four Full Summer Supermoons!

Good evening, fellow Stargazers!

Now that we're finally into the glorious summer months of 2023, we're going to be treated to a grand total of four full supermoons over the course of the next three months! 

A supermoon is a full moon that occurs when our beautiful moon is closest to the Earth in its elliptical orbit at the same time when its on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun.

On average, the Moon rotates around the Earth at a distance of about 238,900 miles (or, 384,472 km). Starting tonight on July 2nd, the Moon will be close to the Earth at a distance of 224,895 miles (or, 361,934 km).

Here is the photo I took of the rising July full supermoon at about 11:00 PM EST. The July full moon is also known as the Full Buck Moon here in North America.

The haziness of the photo is the unfortunate result of slightly overcast skies and the smoke from the Canadian wildfires drifting down from up north to my little corner of the United States. All the same the features of the Man-In-The-Moon can be easily made out. I was also unable to capture the moon with any background features to put it into scale, but our lovely Luna did appear slightly larger than normal.

If you were unable to see the full supermoon this time around for whatever reason, don't worry. Y'all will be getting three more chances over the rest of the summer of 2023 -- and those will actually be closer than this one!

The next full supermoon will be on the night of Tuesday, August 1st when the Moon will be approximately 222,158 miles (or, 357,530 km) from the Earth. God willing far less hazy conditions and clearer skies will afford me the chance to capture a clearer image for y'all to enjoy.

Till then, have a wonderful evening, y'all!

Night Sky Photography -- 06-03/04-2023 -- The Full Strawberry Moon Rising & Antares

This evening and late night on Saturday, June 3rd and Sunday, June 4th, I captures these outstanding shots of the June Full Moon rising in the eastern sky -- including some really beautiful close-up shots of our lovely Luna in the clouds and with the nearby bright star, Antares, the brightest star of the Constellation Leo the Lion.

The June Full Moon is also known as the Strawberry Full Moon here in North America.

Night Sky Photography -- 05-05-2023 -- The Full Flower Moon Over Downtown Chester, South Carolina

Good evening, y'all!

This evening I have a pair of really good photos of the May Full Moon over the evening lights and buildings of downtown Chester, South Carolina -- my hometown -- as well as a nice close-up shot of the Full Moon and all of its outstanding features.

The May Full Moon is known as the Full Flower Moon (or Blossom Moon) here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Night Sky Photography -- 04-05-2023 -- The Full Pink Moon

In the North America, the April Full Moon is known as the Full Pink Moon. This year's April full moon is the first official full moon of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere....and despite the name, its not actually pink.

This evening I was able to capture these two really good shots of the April Full Moon. The first is the wide shot taken from the road down the street from my home, and the second is the close up showing the details of the lunar surface.

Night Sky Photography -- 01-06-2023 -- The Full Micro Wolf Moon & Gemini Twin Stars

Well good evening, fellow stargazers!

This evening clear skies afforded me the opportunity to capture some outstanding shots of the first Full Moon of 2023.

The January Full Moon is referred to as the Full Wolf Moon in North America according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.

This year the Full Wolf Moon appears slightly smaller that normal in the night sky because our lovely Luna is currently at its farthest point (apogee) from our Earth in its elliptical orbit around our planet at about 252,145 miles (or 405,789 kilometers) distance at the time of totality, making this year's Full Wolf Moon a Micromoon (or Apogee Moon)....a Micro Wolf Moon. 

Because a Micromoon is further away, it looks approximately 14% smaller than a Supermoon. The February and March Full Moons will also be micromoons, although they will be slightly closer to the Earth in orbit.

The following are the photos I took of the January 2023 Full Wolf Moon, taken between 6:00 PM EST to 9:00 PM EST.

My final photo is a picture of the Full Wolf Moon near the twin stars of Pollux and Castor in the Constellation Gemini the Twins. The rest of the stars of the constellation itself are lost in the glare of the beautiful moonlight, though the two main stars themselves are still easily visible.

The brightest star in Gemini is Pollux, a red giant star that sits closest to our Sun at a distance of about 34 light-years (or 10.4 parsecs) which is about two times the mass of our Sun and nine times the estimated radius.

The second-brightest is Castor, which sits a bit farther away at about 51 light-years (or 15.6 parsecs) from the Sun.  

The Full Wolf Moon -- the first official Full Moon of the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere -- quite fittingly rests just inside the Winter Circle asterism. By tomorrow evening, Saturday the 7th of January, Luna's path will take her past the twins and just outside of the Winter Circle as she begins waning towards her New Moon Phase two weeks from now on Saturday the 17th of January.

Most years there are 12 full moons, one for each month. The year 2023 however will have 13 full moons, with two in August. The second of which is known as a Full Blue Moon, or Blue Moon....like in the classic phrase "once in a blue moon" which only happens about once every two-and-a-half years, like an astronomical leap-year of sorts.

The Blue Moon, which will occur this year on the evening of Wednesday, August 30th, will also be a Supermoon when our lovely Luna will be at her closest point to the Earth (Perigee) in orbit at a distance of 222,043 miles (or 357,344 kilometers).

The dates of the 2023 full moons.
Image courtesy of facebook.com.

Well folks, have a wonderful evening and y'all be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear!

Night Sky Photography -- 12-07-2022 -- Mars At Opposition With The Full Cold Moon

Mars -- 4th planet of our Solar System.
Image courtesy of NASA.

Good evening, fellow stargazers!

Well folks, my night sky photos this evening showing the December Full Moon with the bright planet Mars in its direct opposition to Earth were taken in a partly to mostly cloud-covered sky just hours before foggy overnight conditions would have made it impossible.

To be honest, I was worried that nothing would show up given the denseness of the cloud cover. But thankfully with a little patience your favorite blogger was able to capture both our lovely Luna and little Mars together during breaks in the clouds and through lighter places where outlining the features on the lunar surface were captured better than they would have been without cloud cover at all.

The distance shots with the bare tree branches in the foreground turned out really well, but it was the close-ups that really showed Mars in all its bright red glory just below the Full Cold Moon -- the name of the December Full Moon in North America.

The following are the outstanding results, a couple of which show off Mars' bright reddish color standing out in the moon glare. A couple of the close-ups between the moving clouds give the appearance of Luna and Mars inside a beautiful aurora.

I hope y'all enjoyed my photos of the last full moon of 2022 and the opposition of Mars -- which unfortunately won't happen again for about 25 more months till January of 2025. Mars will remain one of the brightest objects in the night sky for a couple more months as it begins to move away in its orbit from Earth and dim in brightness.

Night Sky Photography -- 10-09-2022 -- The Full Hunter's Moon & Jupiter

Good evening fellow Stargazers!

Tonight with beautifully clear skies overhead, I was able to capture a really lovely shot of the first Full Moon of autumn 2022 in the eastern sky with Jupiter, the largest planet on our Solar System, shinning brightly nearby.

The Full Moon in October 2022 is the Full Hunters Moon this year. Sometimes, every few years or so, the Harvest Moon is the Full Moon of October. The Harvest Moon is actually the closest Full Moon to the autumn equinox every year and can occur before and after the equinox. Since the Full Moon occurred before September 21st this year, the Hunters Moon is the name of this month's Full Moon.

Night Sky Photography -- 10-01-20 -- The Harvest Moon & Mars Rising

Greetings & Salutation, fellow stargazers! 

This evening the first of two -- count em! -- two October full moons rose in the east. The first full moon of autumn following the fall equinox (September 22nd) is also known as the Harvest Moon, named so because it dates back to the time before electricity when farmers depended on the full Moon's light to harvest their crops late into the night near the fall harvest season.

 

Here are the photos I took of the Full Harvest Moon rising over downtown Chester, South Carolina. The first shot is the risen full moon over SC Highway 9 in the east with the city street in the foreground. The second shot is a close-up of the Harvest Moon itself.

 

About an hour later I captured another shot of the risen Harvest Moon and Mars in the east. Here in the first photo y'all can see our beautiful full moon shinning against the clouds with the now visibly larger Mars glowing red nearby. In the second close-up photo, you can see all the visible landmarks on the Lunar surface, including the dark "seas" that make up the Man in the Moon, and Tycho Crater on the bottom left of the moon's surface.

 

This is going to be quite the month for planetary photography and stargazing, especially for The Red Planet as Mars reaches its closest approach to our Earth on the night of Tuesday, October 6th, and then reaches opposition between Earth and the Sun on Tuesday, October 13th. 

 

The second full moon in a month is referred to as a Blue Moon, even though Luna herself will not actually turn blue. The second full moon in October will fall of October 31st -- Halloween night! How cool is that! I'm praying for clear skies to get a great shot of this year's Halloween Blue Moon.

Well folks, I hope that y'all enjoyed my photos for the evening, please check back tomorrow night when I hope to capture another good shot of Luna and Mars meeting in the east after sunset.

Until then, have a wonderful Dixie day and be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all.

Night Sky Photography -- 07-06-2020 -- Full Moon, Jupiter & Saturn In Triangle

Good evening, fellow stargazers!

Last night I was able to capture our beautiful full moon in the southern sky in a celestial triangle with the two largest planets on our solar system: Jupiter and Saturn. 

As you can see Luna appears to be topped by the two planets. Bright Jupiter can be seen on the right, while Saturn appears a bit smaller and about one-third dimmer on the left. 

A closeup shot of Jupiter I took once again reveals all four of the famous Galilean satellites that famed Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered using his first crude telescope 410 years ago. Io and Ganymede appear on one side of Jupiter, while Europa and Callisto (more widely separated) can be seen on the other. They are the four largest of Jupiter's 79 known moons.

The four Galilean (Jovian) Moons: (from top to bottom)
Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto -- compared by size next to
the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.

Unfortunately, even at maximum magnification, my camera can't pick up the rings, but if you are checking out Saturn, any telescope magnifying more than 25-power should provide you with a view of its famous ring system, now tilted nearly 22 degrees toward Earth. 

Anyone wanting to see the two large planets will still be able to for some time as they will remain close to each other in the late evening sky for much of the rest of the year. Jupiter and Saturn will continue to get brighter heading into the middle of the month with the two planets making their closest approach (opposition) to the Earth in mid-July -- Jupiter on the evening of Monday, July 13th and Saturn on Monday, July 20th. The moon will meet them again in the evening sky on Saturday, August 1st. 

My final shot is a close up of the full moon.

  

Luna actually became a full moon in the early morning hours of July 5th. In North America the July full moon is called the Buck Moon because this is the time of year that male deer begin to grow velvety antlers. Farmers call the July full moon a Hay Moon, or Thunder Moon because farmers are working to put hay in their barns and trying to avoid the frequent summer thunder showers.

Well folks, I hope y'all have a wonderful evening and remember to keep your eyes to the night skies! 

Night Sky Photography -- 05-19-2019 -- 2019 Seasonal Blue Flower Moon & Jupiter

Good evening from upstate South Carolina, my fellow skywatchers! 

This evening, yours truly stayed up really later -- over an hour after midnight in point of fact! -- to capture a really outstanding set of images showing the Seasonal Blue Moon of 2019, along with the giant planet Jupiter close by. 

I captured these shots of the May full moon -- the Flower Moon --  near some large power lines in the foreground, including a close up of both Jupiter and the full moon. 

Now for all of y'all who are familiar with the normal term "Blue Moon" y'all know that the moon does not turn blue in point of fact. By normal term, I refer to the classic definition of a Blue Moon: the second full moon of a calendar month. Since a lunar cycle (or the time from a new moon, to a full moon, and back) lasts about 29.5 days, and most months have 30 or 31 days, inevitably there will be overlap, with the occasional calendar month including two full moons.

This is the definition that most of us are the most familiar with from the old expression, “Once in a blue moon,” which refers to the fact that this rare occurrence usually only happens every two to three years (though two of them actually happened in January & March of 2018). 

Also this definition applies to the 13th full moon in a calendar year. Since 12 lunar months only have 354 days, some years will also have 13 full moons.

However, this evening's full moon is neither of those Blue Moons. 

A Seasonal Blue Moon refers to the third full moon in an astronomical season that has four full moons. 

An astronomical season is divided by the solstices and the equinoxes -- summer solstice beginning in June, winter solstice beginning in December, spring equinox beginning in March, and fall equinox beginning in September. An astronomical season includes three months, so it would normally encompass three full moons. But since our seasons are divided by a solar calendar and not a lunar calendar, there can sometimes be overlap between lunar cycles and astronomical seasons. When this happens, and there are four full moons in an astronomical season, the third one of these is called a Seasonal Blue Moon.

It's a good thing this blogger was awake to capture it this time around since the next Seasonal Blue Moon is not due again until August 22, 2021. 

By tomorrow evening, a beautiful nearly still full Luna will move closer to Jupiter -- at least from our relative perspective here on Earth.  

Well folks, I hope y'all enjoyed my photos once again. I am headed to bed. Have a good evening and remember to keep looking to the night skies, y'all!

Night Sky Photography -- 01-20/21-2019 -- Full Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse

The Full Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse at full umbra (Earth's shadow)
at 12:40 PM EST on Monday, January 21st, 2019.

On the night of Sunday, January 20th - Monday, January 21st, we had the first full moon of 2019, and the first lunar eclipse of 2019 -- A Full Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse. The lunar eclipse could be viewed from North and South America, Greenland, Iceland, Europe, northern and western Africa, plus the Arctic region of the globe.

The total eclipse of the moon lasted a little more than one hour. It was followed by another partial umbral eclipse, each time persisting for over an hour. The whole umbral eclipse from start to finish had an overall duration of nearly 3 1/3 hours. 

Graph showing the transition of the moon through the shadow of the Earth during the lunar eclipse.
Graphic courtesy of Space.com

 
On Sunday, January 20, 2019 at around 9:30 PM EST Luna began to enter the penumbra (the shadow of the Earth). At around 10:32 PM EST, it moved into the umbra (the darkest part of the shadow). The moon was completely in the umbra at around 11:40 PM EST, which officially started the total lunar eclipse. It was at this point that Luna begin to take on that reddish-orange Mars-like color. The greatest eclipse took place at 12:12 AM EST on Monday, January 21, 2019, when the moon is midway through the umbra. 

The following are the photos this blogger took of the Full Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse between 9 PM EST to 12:45 PM EST. It was truly a wondrous sight to behold.

The eclipse is the first of three straight full supermoons, meaning the moon will be nearly at its closest to Earth for this January, as the eclipse takes place. 

The January Full Moon is often called the Wolf Moon. Other names include Old Moon, Ice Moon, and Snow Moon, although this name is usually attributed to the February Full Moon. While the farmer's almanac states that Wolf Moon is a Native-American name, other sources claim that it has Anglo-Saxon origins. In Anglo-Saxon culture, the January Full Moon was also called the Moon after Yule, which is the time of the ancient festival celebrating the Winter Solstice around December 22.

This will be the last total lunar eclipse to grace Earth’s sky until Wednesday, May 26, 2021.