Last night was the first properly clear evening in weeks for me, so I did not have the opportunity to try before. There was a lot if cloud overhead last Monday when I did see Mercury and Saturn together, and binoculars were needed for Saturn.

#Astrohype
#PlanetaryParade
#ParadeOfPlanets

There is some media hype about tonight's perigee full Moon, which is being popularly called a "supermoon".

This is the perigee full Moon last month, which though quite interesting, was mundane compared to the bright comet in the opposite side of the sky.

#SuperMoon
#Astrohype
#supermoon

And given the "supermoon" media hype, I took a picture of the perigee full Moon, although the Moon was a lot less interesting than Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS on the opposite side of the sky. (Recorded with a SLR camera on a 90mm aperture Schmidt-Maksutov telescope.)

#SuperMoon
#Astrohype
#supermoon

Well, I tried taking some pictures of the Moon, given the media hype.

The first picture was taken with a digital SLR camera attached to a 100mm aperture f/5 refracting telescope.

The second is an image from a digital SLR camera attached to a 90mm Schmidt-Maksutov telescope.

#Supermoon
#Astrohype

The Moon may appear red in colour if it is low above the horizon. It may appear particularly red from here in Britain because of ash particles from forest fires in North America. Not blue.

By all means look at the Moon tonight if you can, but don't get too excited.

#Astrohype

There has been a lot of hype about today's full Moon which is being called a "blue supermoon" in many media.

The Moon was full about an hour ago. It will be at perigee at 5h UTC on 21st August, so the full phase today is fairly close to perigee.

#Astrohype
#Supermoon