Two Marses, Two Moons

I should have posted this a while ago.

Here's a photo of Mars and the Moon from September 5th (three days past full), the Saturday before Labor Day (and all those wretched fires).  

And here's a photo of Mars and the Moon from October 2nd (one day past full).   In this photo, the Moon was still fairly low in the sky, and smoke from fires in California stained it burnt orange.   Mars will be in opposition on October 13th.  

I'd forgotten that I'd taken the September photo -- which really says something about when exposure to ten day's worth of hazardous smoke particulate levels will do to a person.  I was going to say something about how the Earth has moved approximately twenty-six degrees along its orbit and that you can see that in how the Moon's position has changed in relationship with Mars'... but Mars went retrograde September 10, so I'm not sure how much one can really say about the Earth/Moon orbit and its effect on the Moon's phases from these photos.