Full Moon Phenomenon Still Unexplained

Saturday evening, February 27, on the same day that Chile suffered an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, I noticed the full moon was just rising. Taking my new Nikon D90 camera I started photographing the moon. As it started to get darker something unusual happened. As I focused on the moon, another faint and blue image of the moon started appearing right next to the bright moon. Puzzled by this development, I brought out my tripod, and to my amazement, the blue moon appeared again and again, except that it changed positions. The tripod remained in the same spot and position, but the blue image of the moon kept jumping

At the time I felt that I was photographing another dimension, as wacky as it may sound. I took some wide shots, so as to rule out the idea that the mirror image was caused by the atmosphere or the clouds in the sky. To my further amazement, the blue spot still appeared!

I wish another photographer, or scientist could explain this phenomenon, but through all the years I've been photographing the moon, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. What's even more strange is that the blue image started fading, little by little, until it was completely gone, leaving me very puzzled.

© Photos by Lamberto®

Posted by Lamberto at 2:27 AM on 3/2/2010 | Comments (13)

A moondog?

Here we go. Beth is my best proof that I was taking these pictures and I was so amazed, because we could not see it with our eyes, but the camera registered the blue moon. Beth just blamed it on the clouds, and I have taken enough cloud pictures to know what clouds in combination with light can do... but nothing of this magnitude.

Here we go. Beth is my best proof that I was taking these pictures and I was so amazed, because we could not see it with our eyes, but the camera registered the blue moon. Beth just blamed it on the clouds, and I have taken enough cloud pictures to know what clouds in combination with light can do... but nothing of this magnitude.

Sheerita, what I'm going to do right now is post the series of photos as I took them that night in my blog. It could be nothing, but a friend of mine just called me and said I should contact NASA because he found it very strange, in light of the fact that the Earth itself had moved off its axis by 3 inches because of the earthquake in Chile, and it caused the time to be sped by one millionth of a second per day. Is there a correlation between the two? Could the Earth have been moving during this time and caused the reflection of them moon to be duplicated through the atmosphere? Don't know...

It was a very cool phenomenon. I think it was a reflection off the clouds. But the reflection is so detailed. You can really see the craters!

You should try shooting now to see if you can replicate it. I doubt it has anything to do with the moon being full. The blue moon probably just moved because the moon moves. You can get the time from the camera's info on the photo and adjust it by sunset times and replicate the angle and focal length based on the placement of the eave of the roof that shows in some photos. This is so cool! And I'm so curious!

I am going to try shooting it again on the next full moon cycle Sherri. I keep thinking that somehow the mirror inside the camera caused a double exposure, but that still does not explain why the "blue moon" kept moving, even though my camera was in a tripod.

That is phenomenal! I'm glad you captured it. Have you tried to recreate the setup to see if it happens again...although it might be hard to know if you have the same angles.

LOL! No, I don't spike my coffee, but maybe I should, eh?... What do you make of it?

Any hierba buena in your coffee?

Try Googling "Double Moon" and you'll see a few other examples of the same effect.

This is the TRUE BLUE MOON although, that is not possible in the month of February or the 27th of any month for that matter. I would like to see what the experts say. What a cool phenomenon though!

very interesting. i hadnt noticed it. but now im gonna look into it. ill let you know if i find anything out...