THE "FLOWER" MOON RISING ABOVE SCARBOROUGH CASTLE - 01/05/2026
Last night we went on a little celestial adventure to capture an image of this May's "Flower" Moon rising above Scarborough Castle.
OUR CELESTIAL ADVENTURE
Initially we weren't going to head out as the cloud radars weren't looking that promising, but we decided to head out and see what would happen.
It was a beautiful and warm spring evening, and as the sun was setting we gathered our camera gear and set off to one of our favourite locations just outside of Scarborough.
After a short journey, we arrived at our destination just 5 minutes before the Moonrise. We knew that from our location the Moon would appear close by to the castle shortly after it had risen, and so we began setting up our camera gear straight away. Sure enough, a little later we could see a hint of the orangey/red glow from the Moon nearby to the castle.Â
Once we had set up our camera gear, we noticed that we would need to relocate a little to get the shot we had planned, and so we picked up our camera and ran to a position where we could see the Moon above the castle.
There was a quite a lot of cloud in the skies above the Moon, and we were a little worried that the cloud would move in and ruin our opportunity, however the clouds remained mostly clear of the shot and we started shooting.
After we finished up shooting the Moon we decided to head to one of our favourite walking spots to let Luna have a nice spring walk before heading back home to look at our photos.
OUR PHOTOGRAPH OF THE "FLOWER" MOON + CASTLE
Unfortunately, the Moon ended up a little higher in our shot than we initially planned, the warm humid conditions were affecting the clarity of the vista a little, and we were hoping for a little golden light upon the castle from setting sun, but the thick cloud towards the sunset stopped this. However, although last night's attempts at shooting the Moon didn't end up quite how we planned, we were still fairly pleased with the shots we managed to capture and we thought it would be nice to share one of them with you. We hope you like it! 🙂
In this image you can see the beautiful orangey/red coloured full "Flower" Moon rising above the twilight lit Scarborough Castle.
📷 Camera – Nikon Z8
🔠Lens – Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 with TC-1401 teleconverter
🎛 Moon+sky - 1/5s , ISO 3200, f/9
🎛 Foreground - 2.5s, ISO 800, f/9
WHY DOES THE MOON LOOK SO BIG?
When you look at this image, you might be wondering "why does the Moon look so big compared to the castle?". The reason is because we deliberately captured this image from 6.1km away from the castle to make the Moon appear larger.
The Moon appears the same size in the sky no matter where you view it from on Earth. However, when viewing things here on Earth, the further away you get from what you are looking at, the smaller it appears (Remember that sketch from Father Ted?).
You can use this effect to capture dramatic images of the Moon appearing extremely large compared to your foreground subject (as long as you know where and when to be in order to line them up).
WHY DOES THE MOON LOOKS SO RED?
When we captured this photograph, the Moon was only 0.96 degrees high in the sky.
The reason why the sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset looks red in colour is because of the Earth's atmosphere. Our atmosphere scatters blue wavelengths of light, this effect creates the blue colour of our skies and is known as the "Rayleigh effect".
When the Moon is close to the horizon, all the light from the Moon is travelling through a thicker section of the atmosphere compared to when it is high in the sky. As the moonlight is travelling through a thicker section of atmosphere a lot of its blue light is scattered, leaving only the red wavelengths of light to reach us. This is what makes the Moon appear red in colour. As the Moon rises higher in the sky, less of the blue light is scattered and the Moon steadily becomes paler in colour.
WHAT ELSE IS IN THE NIGHT SKY THROUGHOUT MAY?
If you would like to know more about the rest of the celestial treats that can be seen in the skies throughout this May, please watch our Night Sky Guide video for May 2026. You can find our video here on our Facebook and on our YouTube channel.
Click here to view our Night Sky Guide video for May.
SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES AND PHOTOGRAPHS!
We always love hearing about your celestial adventures and seeing your photographs! If you headed out to witness or capture photos of this special celestial event or any other sights in the night sky, please feel free to share your stories and photos in the comments below. 😊
 WISHING YOU ALL STARRY SKIES!
All in all, it was an amazing evening, and we hope that you enjoy the photograph we captured.
As always if you head out to enjoy the night sky any time in the near future, we wish you good luck and clear skies! 💖✨🌌