Oh my! What a beautiful sight it was to see the (Perigee) Super Moon rising in the evening sky.
 
At the moment there’s a lot of aerosols in our sky because of many bush fires and dust, which is why the full Moon low on the horizon looks this beautiful rustic red colour :-)

​A few hours later at 9 pm when the Moon was high up in the sky it was it’s normal colour.
 
I was quite surprised to see that the Seestar S50 telescope picked up the beautiful red colour of the Moon, 25 images were captured for both shots then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

We had a beautiful clear evening for NASA’s International Observe the Moon night (InOMN) event.

Our astronomy club the Southern Astronomical Society (SAS) here on the Gold Coast held a public field night but I was unable to attend. My husband and I enjoyed looking at the Moon together at home and I took some images with the little Seestar S50 telescope.
 
I hope everybody worldwide had an awesome night looking at our amazing Moon :-)
 
InOMN website at: https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/

If you observed the Moon or participated in an event download your own InOMN Participation Certificate at:
https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/participate/participation-certificate/
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​I managed to quickly set up the little Seestar S50 telescope just outside our cabin in town and capture this stunning comet low in the western sky.

It was not ideal conditions because of all the lights from the local hotel that was across the road…but I took the chance and I caught myself a beautiful comet :-)

​ I love the pretty green colour of the coma and its long delicate flyaway tail that stretched right up the sky. Images taken with a Seestar S50 telescope four images were stacked in DSS and very lightly processed in PS, the pretty green colour in the image is natural.

There is an excellent article from the UNSW in Australia that explains why comets heads are green by chemist Professor Timothy Schmidt, the link is at: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2021/12/comets--heads-can-be-green--but-never-their-tails--after-90-year
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We had a lovely clear evening for moonrise, I took a lovely wide field image of the full Moon rising with the pretty pink and blue colours know as the Belt of Venus.
 
Once it got dark enough I took some more images with the Seestar S50 telescope, this full Moon in September is referred to as the ‘Corn Moon’ or sometimes if it’s close to the equinox date as the Harvest Moon.
 
Tonight’s full Moon will be a total eclipse of the Moon, but with my position here on the east coast of Australia we will only see a partial eclipse at 3.30am and finishing at 4.30am in the early morning of the 8th September 2025.
 
Footnote: I woke up to view the partial lunar eclipse, but only got a glimpse of it through heavy cloud, then it was gone completely, Oh well I tried :-)

~ View of 1st Quarter Moon (7 day old) as seen from Southern & Northern Hemispheres on 31st August 2025 ~
 
It’s very interesting how people of the world see how the Moon rises in relation to where they are on the surface of the Earth. In Australia we are in the southern hemisphere so when the Moon rises we view the south of the Moon to the top and the north to the bottom.
 
The Moon also heads over to the northern sky during the night, where as in the northern hemisphere the Moon heads over to the southern sky; this always throws me when visiting the northern hemisphere as the Moon is also upside down, tricky isn’t it  ;-)
 
Don’t get me stared on the northern hemisphere constellation that we share; yes they are also upside down here in Australia, so if you are visiting us here down under be in for a nice surprise trying to work it all out :-)
 
Images taken with a Seestar S50 telescope, 20 images were captured then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

~ Waxing Gibbous (12 day old) Moon with bright ray systems of Tycho & Copernicus craters ~
On the 5th August 2025 ~

Tycho crater is a very prominent crater, it’s one of the youngest on the lunar surface, and its approximate age is about 100 million years, that’s very young compared with the total age of the Moon at over 4 billion years old!
 
From after the 9-day-old phase you’ll start to see more and more of this ray system that’s connected to the ejected material that was produced from the impact that caused Tycho crater. By the full Moon phase (14 days old) you can trace the distance of these many ejected rays to over 1500 km across the lunar surface.
 
The other large impact crater seen here not far off the termination line is the crater Copernicus, which has a complex terraced wall with a large central mountain range in the middle. You can spend a lot of time at the eyepiece just looking around this area, as the detail is just incredible!
 
An excellent book that I use that teaches me everything I need to know about the Moon is
Hamlyn ‘Atlas of the Moon’ by Antonin Rukl.
 
Every night the Moon offers up so much to see as the sunlight illuminates different features along the termination line right up to the full Moon phase, then after that you get to see everything in reverse with all the light and shadows going in the opposite direction.
 
My image was taken with the little Seestar S50 telescope, 25 images were captured then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

Every month we have a full moon as the moon orbits our planet, this full moon is known as the strawberry harvest moon as it lines up with the start of the strawberry season in the northern hemisphere.
 
Here in the southern hemisphere it’s known as the cold moon because we are in the middle of winter and it is close to our winter solstice. You’ll notice from my image that from here in the southern hemisphere the orientation of the moon appears to be upside down…it’s all a bit tricky isn’t it :-)
 
There was another very interesting astronomical fact about this June full moon and that is its position in the sky, which was positioned as the furthest point in the southern skies. This is know as lunar standstill and it happens every 18.6 years, the last time it occurred was in 2006 and it won’t happen again now until 4043.
 
Images taken a Seestar S50 telescope,
20 images were captured then stacked in Registax6 and processed in PS.

If you would like to understand more about this celestial lunar movement please go to this paper
Written by Erica Ellingson and Fabio Silva at:
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/JSA/article/view/28181/28654

~ V shape on Terminator ~
 
At around the first quarter Moon phase sometimes if the angle of light on the terminator line is just right, you may see an optical phenomenon and see a letter V or a letter X on the lunar surface!
 
You will only see this for a short period of time as the sunlight marches on across the lunar surface; on this evening I was only able to capture the letter V along the terminator. But this is not the usual V shape; it’s another one that I’ve captured on this night, how good is that!
 
What is happening here? This kind of phenomenon is referred to as a ‘claire-obscure’ effect and occurs when the interplay between light and shadow leads to the chance formation of familiar sharps on the Moons craggy terrain.
 
Have some fun trying to find some other recognisable object on the lunar surface features, here is an article by astronomy.com that may help you at:
 
Observe shadow play on the Moon
The effects of light and dark on the lunar terminator offer some great observing fun.
 
https://www.astronomy.com/observing/observe-shadow-play-on-the-moon/
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At last we have a clear sky tonight and there’s a beautiful first quarter Moon on show. I took the little Seestar S50 outside to capture some images, I just love this little telescope it’s so easy to use on the Sun and Moon and it shows excellent detail on the lunar surface.
 
I was hoping to capture the V or the X on the terminator line but it’s not there, if it’s clear tomorrow night I’ll try again as it’s a bit elusive around the first quarter Moon phase. It really all depends on how the illumination happens along the terminator line at a certain time…lets see how we go for tomorrow night :-)
 
Image taken with the little Seestar S50 telescope twenty images captured which were stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.

The waning gibbous Moon shows the Tycho crater to the top and the prominent dark Maria of Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum) and Sea Of Rains (Mare Imbrium). You can also see the bright ray craters of Copernicus, Kepler & Aristarchus at this illumination phase of 19days old.
 
Images taken with Seestar S50 telescope, twenty images captured then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS.
 
NOTE: I really think this little smart telescope does a great job of taking images of the Moon :-)