​The Moon looked very pretty in the sky last night as it glided close by the red planet Mars, which is positioned just to the right of the Moon in my photo.
 
We had another very cloudy evening here on the Gold Coast, but this time I didn’t mind at all because the Moon had a beautiful coloured corona surrounding it, which is caused by the Moon’s light refracting through the ice crystals in the clouds.
 
To capture the surface detail on the Moon, you have to wait for just the right moment when there’s enough thick cloud covering the lunar surface to take your images…it’s a little bit tricky!
 
This is just one single image taken with a Canon 70D camera and a 17-85mm lens set at 85mm, with a 1 second exposure and ISO 640 at 11pm (AEST) on the 28th March 2016.

​In the early hours of this morning I knew that Comet 252P/Linear would be near the bright star Shaula, which in the sting of Scorpius. Visually I could not see the comet at all, not even with binoculars, as the Moon was just too bright! I also had quite a lot of high cirrus cloud, so I’m very surprised I was even able to captured it at all…
 
The images are only very short exposures, but they do show where the comet was in the sky on the 26th March, and you can still make out the lovely bright green colour of its gases. The green colour is due to the vaporizing gas, diatomic carbon (C2) that is being emitted by the comets nucleus caused by the heat from the Sun.
 
The marked image is of the full constellation of Scorpius with the planets Mars and Saturn making a nice triangular pattern with Antares. Comet 252P/Linear is also faintly on show in the tail…you can just make out the green colour (If you look very closely)
 
The first image was taken with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens that was set at 100mm, exposures were 2 seconds. There were 8 images stacked in DSS and processed in PS. The wide field image is with the same camera and a Tokina 11-16mm lens set at 13mm with a 10 second exposure and ISO500, it’s just a single image.

Look how light the sky is because of the light of a large waning gibbous Moon!!!

​You will notice a slight darkening on the top right hand corner of the Moon due to a slight graze of a penumbral lunar eclipse…its ever so slight, but it’s there!
 
It’s also so nice to see that this special lunar event is still very relevant in our world today…even if your not religious, everyone still enjoys the Easter holidays :-)
 
Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full Moon that falls after the spring equinox, (21st March approximately) or autumnal equinox, if you live in the southern hemisphere, like I do. This is why the date for Easter can sometimes be celebrated in either March or April.
 
Depending on your latitude on Earth, you’ll see the lunar disc orientated differently; here in Australia we view the Moonrise with South near the right hand top.
 
The first image was taken as the Moon was rising with a Canon 70D camera and a Canon 100-400 mm lens set at 400mm, ISO 500 and 1/90th second exposure.
 
The other two images were taken with a 127mm refractor at prime focus using a Canon 70D camera, ISO 100 and exposures were 1/500th second. There were 6 images stacked in Registax 6 and processed in PS CS4, I outlined the bunny with the pencil tool in PS.

Sometimes I use the shapes of the main lunar seas to help young children learn the surface features of the Moon. 
The ears are the two lunar seas (left) Sea of Fertility (right) Sea of Nectar, (The Face) Sea of Tranquillity, (The body) Sea of Serenity and at Easter time the Sea of Crisis becomes an Easter egg.

This is just a fun way to teach them about our Moon at this time of the year.
~ Have a Happy and safe Easter to All ~