Blue Moon


This is a photo of a "blue moon" taken in very late August 2023 in the skies above my house in Rowville, Australia. It was taken at 10:15pm as I took the dog out for his ablutions before bedtime. By this time, the moon had risen very high into the sky. I could not let the opportunity pass me by, so I took a quick hand-held shot with my phone (rather than my SLR camera on a tripod).

Clearly there is nothing blue about the moon - it's colour is silvery white. Just look at the flare from that light! You should know that the moon does not emit its own light, it reflects sunlight off its surface. So as a reflector of the sun's light, the moon does quite an amazing job. It can light up the darkness of night so that it almost appears as weak daylight.

What struck me about the moon when I saw it that evening was how the brightness of its reflective light lit up that vast sky above me to such an extent that the night sky was no longer its typical inky-black. The sky in fact appeared to be a very deep blue - almost indigo. What's more, the clouds were detailed by the light - they were not a grey colour, but displayed as white - look at the cloud in the middle of the photo.

Is this not an awesome display of the beautiful creation from the ONE true God?


Image: "Blue Moon", Rowville, Victoria, Australia. Copyright - Michael Beaton

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