Once in a Blue Moon…

On Tuesday night and Thursday morning I was doing a bit of multi-tasking - capturing the full moon with my camera on a tripd while Big Bertha imaged the Lion Nebula...

Full Blue Moon - 30 August 2023

This image of the August full Blue Moon was captured with my Canon EOS 5DSR, Tamron 150-600mm lens on a tripod, while Big Bertha was imaging the Lion Nebula.  In the name of photographic honesty, this is a composite of two images created in Photoshop.  I  underexposed the moon (by 3 stops, to get its detail) while exposing the flag properly and created the composite image you see here…   

full-blue-moon-american-flag
Composite image of the August Blue Moon with the HCH flag

Why do they call it a Blue Moon??

A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: the third of four full moons in a season.  The phrase in modern usage has nothing to do with the actual color of the Moon, although a visually blue Moon (the Moon appearing with a bluish tinge) may occur under certain atmospheric conditions—for instance, if volcanic eruptions or fires release particles in the atmosphere of just the right size to preferentially scatter red light.  {From:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon }

The rest of the story, capture notes, and additional photos are in the gallery here:  https://beersastrophotography.com/gallery/full-blue-moon-30-august-2023/