Starship Asterisk*

A Blue Moon in Exaggerated Colors

Explanation: The Moon is normally seen in subtle shades of grey or gold. But small, measurable color differences have been greatly exaggerated to make this telescopic, multicolored, moonscape captured during the Moon's full phase. The different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface. Blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. The familiar Sea of Tranquility, or Mare Tranquillitatis, is the blue area toward the upper right. White lines radiate across the orange-hued southern lunar highlands from 85-kilometer wide ray-crater Tycho at bottom right. The full moon that occurred earlier this month could be counted as a seasonal blue moon because it was, unusually, the third of four full moons to occur during northern summer (and hence southern winter). The featured 272-image composite demonstrates that the full Moon is always blue, but usually not blue enough in hue to ooh.

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FYI : Robert Fedez (FB) is actually Roberto Fernandez (Photographer).

Oh wow. I had never realized before that the so called seas on the Moon would have a blue color! Kind of obvious though. Except for the Black Sea at top right. Being black.

Cool picture!

Regarding the last sentence: " The featured 272-image composite demonstrates that the full Moon is always blue, but usually not blue enough in hue to ooh. ", is it really so that the blue hue of some of the features can be easily seen through a telescope? I read somewhere that the crater Aristarchus (to the left of the image) is one of the bluest craters. I was wondering, if the human eye would be able to see the hue at all?

I've seen to moon through a D=0.8 m telescope before, but could not make out any specific colouration (also not through smaller ones) except grey-reddish-orange maybe. Does someone has a different experience?

Well I guess it looks pretty all gussied up like that; and it
tells us a thing or two of the minerals! That's a mighty big puppy!

NaN wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 10:33 am Cool picture!

Regarding the last sentence: " The featured 272-image composite demonstrates that the full Moon is always blue, but usually not blue enough in hue to ooh. ", is it really so that the blue hue of some of the features can be easily seen through a telescope? I read somewhere that the crater Aristarchus (to the left of the image) is one of the bluest craters. I was wondering, if the human eye would be able to see the hue at all?

I've seen to moon through a D=0.8 m telescope before, but could not make out any specific colouration (also not through smaller ones) except grey-reddish-orange maybe. Does someone has a different experience?

The "gold" link from the description shows a few full moon examples with clearly bluish seas, at least to my eyes. But even in those, the non-sea areas look more blue to me!

Wow! I learned today that a 'true' blue moon is not the commonly believed 'second full moon in a month,' but rather the 'third full moon of a season with four.' And, as in 1937, this can happen in a calendar year that has only the usual twelve one-a-month full moons, not thirteen. The Sky & Telescope magazine article in the link is quite interesting.

The expression "Blue moon" has nothing to do with the moon color, which is quite variable as the humanity has always seen it through the filter of the constantly changing atmosphere.