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11 Dazzling Photos Of The Blood Supermoon

by Jo Yurcaba

Sunday night's blood supermoon was beautiful for some and elusive for others. In areas like New York City and parts of Canada, the Moon was blocked out by partial cloud cover for part of the rare lunar eclipse. But still, many people seemed to get amazing photos of the blood supermoon. Unfortunately, unless those people are professional photographers, some of these images actually aren't from Sunday night.

Anyone who saw the blood supermoon under the right visibility probably saw the normal Moon at its full phase. Depending on what part of the eclipse you were viewing, all or part of the Moon looked a reddish-orange color. Because the Moon was full at its closest point of orbit with Earth, it was a supermoon, appearing larger in the sky than it does throughout the rest of the year. But that still makes it pretty darn small to the naked eye.

Robert Massey at the Royal Astronomical Society told WIRED that the easiest way to spot a fake Moon photo is to look at what's surrounding it. For example, you would never see a full moon in the daytime sky, and there most likely wouldn't be super bright stars visible really close to the Moon.

If the Moon looks like it's out of place in the photo, then the photo is probably a fake. Like this photo, which a photographer claimed to have taken during a previous supermoon:

Here are a few fake photos of last night's blood supermoon.

And beware of heavily edited photos. There's a reason photographers with nice cameras get the good shots.

Here are 11 real, beautiful photos of Sunday night's blood supermoon -- which won't happen again until 2033.

Images: sculltec, Chris Hyde, James Burns, _lillycosme, Cailean Couldridge, RSE Photography,/Instagram