Moon & Saturn

A clear evening with the moon behind thin clouds but Saturn between clouds. 

Saturn was a quick expo but the moon so I created a high resolution mosaic of several images. 

The moon is in a waning moon (after the full moon on September 26), where about 94–97% of the moon's surface was illuminated, so beautiful mountains & craters are visible. 

Saturn is a gas giant that is mostly made of hydrogen and helium.

It has a diameter of about 116,460 kilometers (about nine times larger than Earth).

So light that it would float on water if there was a bathtub that was big enough.

A day only takes about 10.5 hours.

Surrounded by wide, thin rings made of ice and rock.

Has a large number of moons, of which Titan is the largest. Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere. Distance 1.2 to 1.4 billion kilometers.

Harvest Moon rising

 

Mushroom and Vega

Another clear night with a bright moon. This time, I found a beautiful *Boletus edulis* (porcini mushroom). Below it stands a solitary trumpet lichen fluorescing a vivid blue, while the porcini glows with a greenish hue. *Boletus edulis* is an edible mushroom found in both deciduous and coniferous forests. Technically, it is a bolete. It forms mycorrhizal associations and is therefore dependent on host trees.

In the sky, the bright star Vega is visible in the constellation Lyra.
It lies approximately 25 light-years from Earth, emits a bluish light, and rotates so rapidly that it is flattened into an egg-like or ellipsoidal shape.
Its mass is roughly 2.1 to 2.5 times that of the Sun.
It shines with a luminosity about 40–50 times greater than that of the Sun.
Surrounding the star is a disk of dust and asteroid belts that may indicate the presence of a planetary system.