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

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 :-)

Had to be quick this evening to take some pictures of the Moon because of all the cloud, I grabbed my little Seestar S50 and within 5 minutes it had found the Moon and I was off and running taking pictures…it’s an awesome little telescope for the Sun & Moon when your trying to out smart the weather. I’m so happy with it :-)
 
Last night (12th February) was full Moon and it was raining, this is the Moon tonight at 15 days old, which is classified as a waning gibbous, you can see a tiny portion in shadow to the top. (This is the view we see from the southern hemisphere, with south to the top and north to the bottom)
 
If you tweak the saturation in Photoshop you can bring out the coloured hues that are from the different minerals embedded in the regolith on the surface of the Moon.

​(This is not added; it’s really there) don’t overdo the saturation or it doesn’t look natural!
 
The bluish colours are from areas high in titanium, and the darker orange/brown areas are rich in iron and other oxides. The bright white reflective areas around the ejecta craters I believe are from aluminium and other bright minerals like magnesium, calcium and silicon.
 
Images were taken with a Seestar S50 telescope, 25 images were stacked in Registak6 and processed in PS.

~ The Moon a la natural ~

There was a beautiful view of celestial objects in the western sky last night with brilliant Venus the waxing crescent Moon and Saturn all evenly spaced on the ecliptic.
 
Images were taken with a Canon 70D camera and Tamron 28-400mm lens on a tripod.
 
The close up of the moon was taken with the Seestar S50 telescope, 15 images were captured at 1x and stacked in RegiStax6, processed in PS.