Last Night's Nearly Super Moon

Happy October! Did any of you catch last night's moon? I thought it was a Super Moon, but from what I just read, that moon actually appeared on September 29. Still, this moon was looking plenty close and plenty bright. I took a few photos of it around 9 P.M. or so. 

The moon was noticeably different. I have never been able to capture a view of the craters with my camera. Just look around the right side of it here!

How dramatic is this? Looking at the outline of those clouds will show you just how bright that moon was. I'm not sure I've taken any photos previous to last night's that show clouds with a bright outline. It looks like someone drew the outline of clouds with white chalk on a black chalkboard.

Last night's sky set the perfect mood for what Svengoolie was showing, which was the Trilogy of Terror (1975). Have you guys seen that set of three made for TV mini movies, each starring Karen Black? This was my second time watching them. It was one of those times where I could catch more details the second time around and some of those details made even more sense. If any of you have seen Trilogy of Terror, I'd like to discuss it with you! And if you haven't seen it, I recommend doing so. There are moments in these stories that range from creepy in an icky way to edge of your seat terrifying to thought-provoking. 

Tonight's Pink Super Moon!

I'm happy to say that I had a very clear view of the moon tonight! At times it looked like a warm harvest moon and at other times it really did look pink. According to what I've read online, this pink moon gets its name because of the pink ground phlox blooming at this time. But I sure see a pink hue here.

Isn't that a cool and unusual color for the moon? Oddly it seemed to change before my very eyes and my camera's lens.

I also got this sort of spooky photo of tall grass while accidentally leaving the flash on. I love how this pic turned out. It looks like a bunch of creepy crawly miniature hands reaching out.

And without the flash...

So I'm sure that like me, you guys have realized that night time is the right time to be out and about. (to quote George Thorogood)

"In the night time, that's the right time..."

In my case, it's the right time to go out in public. Although, does it count if the public isn't really there?

I keep meaning to take some night photos around town, although I'm not sure what of. 😆 It's just that blog material is a little scarce right now. But I'll get resourceful and think up something.

Oh, I did end up watching another one of those last minute movies from the library. Appropriately for this blog post, it was Night Shift. I liked it! It's a quirky one. And Michael Keaton is just off-the-wall manic in it.

To give you an idea:

"Nice Frame." 😄

I hope some of you got a chance to see the moon tonight. Maybe you still have some time to get out there. If you'd like to read a little scientific info about tonight's moon, space.com has an interesting page up:

April's Super Pink Moon is the biggest full moon of 2020. Here's what to expect.

According to this page, tonight the moon will be at its closest point to earth for all of 2020. And you guys will find this interesting: on Halloween of 2020, we'll be getting a "minimoon". On Halloween, the moon will appear 13.8% smaller than it does now! Now, we may be getting a miniature moon this Halloween, but according to this page from Farmer's Almanac, it will at least be a full moon! And that's pretty cool.

I hope you are all feeling well and hanging in there. Have you guys been out at night much? It's a great time to be out if you don't want to see too many people and it was definitely worth getting out there to see the moon tonight!

Super Blood Wolf Moon

How's that for a title? Pretty spooky stuff and quite a mouthful. Last night we had a Super Blood Wolf Moon. That's an eclipsed full moon that appears red (blood) and occurs in January (wolf). And I was lucky enough to see it! I didn't see it for long since it was 15° (Fahrenheit) out there and I got cold. It felt colder than 15°, maybe because we had a wind chill situation going on. My camera also gets cold and appears to take blurrier photos when it is. So I was hopping outside the door and back in pretty quickly!

It may have been freezing out there but it was a clear night, so I could clearly see what was going on in the sky. Over about an hour's time, the moon did visibly become shadowed and took on a red/blue/purple tint. I took a few photos, but this one is my favorite.

That photo isn't retouched whatsoever! Look at that purple and red. Amazing. I've never seen a moon quite like this and I can't expect to see one again until 2022. If you're on the Pacific coast of North or South America, you have the possibility of seeing one in 2021.

Here's another shot that I used less of a zoom on. In this one you can see that bright blue on top of the moon.

Isn't that cool? This wasn't one of those times where my camera made things look brighter than they were. If anything, these pics look slightly less bright red than what my eyes were seeing. The sky really gave me the feeling of being in a werewolf or vampire movie.

So did any of you get a look at last night's moon? If you took some photos, I'd love to see them! From the photos I've been seeing online, people in different areas saw the moon in slightly different colors. Either that or they had some fun with Photoshop. ;)

This GIF looks similar to what my eyes actually saw last night, as far as the intensity of red, not the fast movement. Although how wild/terrifying would it be to see an eclipse moving this fast in front of your eyes?

P.S. ~ I was curious to see if any astrologers had something to say about last night's moon. It seemed like a pretty big deal so I expected to find something. Well, I found this list of horoscopes and they're all good:

This Super Blood Full Wolf Moon Eclipse Kicks Off 2019 In the Best Way

Reading over this page, it sounds like the Super Blood Wolf Moon is bringing something positive for everyone. And this Wolf Moon is in Leo. So how's that for some powerful animal forces? A wolf and a lion. If you read that page, I'd be interested to know if your horoscope resonates with you. 

Tonight's Super Bright Super Moon

Did you all get out and see the Super Moon? Tonight, the moon is the closest it has been to earth since 1948!

It was so bright, I actually had to look away from the camera as I took some of these pictures.

I was zooming way in. Something I've noticed about photographing Super Moons is that they give off a pink and purple glow on my camera's screen as I'm taking my pictures. That doesn't happen when I take photos of the regular moon. Unfortunately, the pink and purple doesn't show up in the pictures.

You can see a bit of the ring around the moon that I saw, though.

I like the way the tree branch appears to be holding up the moon in this one.

 

I took a photo using the flash and got this neat, orange glow. There's a bit of green there too for some reason.

It had been a bit cloud covered at first.

 

Last night, the moon was looking more gold and not just with the flash. It was that Harvest moon color.

Isn't that pretty?

The moon had started out as a sort of brightness behind the clouds. I stood out there watching it, camera in hand. In what felt like a thoughtful move from the moon, it rose up out of the clouds as I stood there.

Rising...

Interestingly, the branches in front of the moon look a little transparent. And if you magnify this photo, you might see this light greenish line curving over the top of the moon.

The moon won't be this close to us again until 2034!

If any of you took some pictures of tonight's Super Moon, I'd like to see them! It's possible that the moon looked a little different where you are.

My Pictures of the Super Blood Moon Eclipse

Last Sunday, September 27th, there was something amazing in the sky. Many of you were probably aware that there was a full moon that night. It was also a super moon, a blood moon, and featured a lunar eclipse! This was a pretty big deal because these events have not occurred since 1982. We won't see this moon action in the sky again until 2033!

I was fortunate enough to witness the eclipse. The weather was good and the skies were clear. The eclipse happened a lot faster than I expected. Not to say that the shadow whooshed across the moon, but there was steady movement over the course of an hour. If you took, say a five minute break from looking up, you'd see a definite difference in the moon.

Something cool and almost eerie was the red cast to the shadow once it had nearly covered the moon. At times it looked purple too. I had to laugh at one point because I heard a dog howl. I swear, in the darkness someone's dog howled! How perfect is that?

So of course I had to take a ton of photos through the moon's process of eclipsing. Here they are now, from the bright beginning to the dark end.

And then it started getting red... Funny enough, this is how it looked to my eye, but I could only capture the red from far away. When I closed in, it looked more like a fade from yellow to purple to red.

I cropped in to show you better.

After the eclipse, the shadow across the moon faded back the other way. It was sort of bright from the bottom too. Then it was its normal self again. I had some fun with my fisheye lens for the next two shots. Quite a dramatic sky.

Pretty amazing, hey? I was sure glad to have the opportunity to see this full/super/blood moon with an eclipse! Did any of you see this?