Last night was the beginning of the Autumn equinox. It wasn't
a "blue moon", but a Super Harvest Moon. The moon looks blue
in this picture because I used a tungsten white balance for this
shot.
A bright Harvest Moon ushered in the changing seasons on Earth
late Wednesday (Sept. 22) in a rare cosmic arrangement that has
not occurred in nearly 20 years.
The full moon of September arrived on the same night as the
autumnal equinox, which occurred last night at 11:09 p.m. EDT
(Sept. 23) to mark the official start of the fall season in the Northern
Hemisphere, as well as spring in the south.
Not since Sept. 23, 1991 has a full moon occurred on the same night
as the fall equinox, and it won't happen again until 2029, wrote
astronomer Tony Phillips in a NASA announcement. According to
Phillips, the Harvest Moon typically occurs a few days or weeks before
or after the fall equinox. This year, though, the full moon occurs just
six hours after the equinox, making it what Phillips called a "Super
Harvest Moon."
