Great image Dennis, all the more so for being taken somewhat without notice as such.
I was out initially around 11pm looking at Antares and the Moon naked eye style for a short period, noting Antares relative position and brightness for later comparison. I went out again around 1am but this time I set up my 20x80 bino's, having decided to leave the 12" dob indoors for the evening. It was an evening for great viewing I must admit, but a heck of an angle for the old neck looking up at such an elevation through bino's.
After 20-30 minutes of soaking up the view I went inside again for a while, but having worked until 11pm my head was still far from being ready to sleep (that came eventually around 5am). I was playing around with Starry Night - making the Moon creep back and forth across the sky, etc, until eventually I took the bino's outside again around 3am.
The Moon had crept so much closer to Anatares by now, which through the bino's was very crisp, and very clearly a bright red point of blazing fusion, and a fine counterpoint to the blazing whiteness of the Moon. Even as a naked eye object Antares appearance was definitely that of a bright red star, but definitely overwhelmed by the more massive looking Moon so close.
I noted that no matter how objectively I tried looking at the distance between the Moon and Antares by naked eye they appeared to be around 4/5 of a lunar diameter apart, yet I knew this to be untrue. Through the bino's they were definitely more than a lunar diameter apart at this time, yet swapping views back and forth I could not make my brian reconcile the distance clearly by naked eye.
Over the next hour and a half maybe I kept returning to check Antares and the Moon, filling the gaps in between by observing Omega Centauri, 47 Tuc, the 4 corners of Crux, the Jewel Box and anything else that was east/south of me and visible through all that moonlight!
Finally I packed it in and came inside to go to bed - well content at what I had observed, but definitely looking forward to seeing Jupiter much nearer the Moon tonight than it was last night!
