See the moment the blue supermoon 'gobbled up' Saturn in epic astrophotography image

Stargazers enjoying the splendor of August's "Sturgeon Moon" — which is also a blue supermoon — on Aug. 20 may have noticed something peculiar: a planet disappearing from the sky.

In the wee hours of the morning, the moon occulted — or completely passed in front of — the bright planet Saturn, appearing to snuff the ringed world's light for more than an hour. The rare lunar occultation of Saturn was visible only from parts of South America, Europe and Africa. But if you missed it, don't worry — astrophotographer Josh Dury managed to capture the entire event from his perch in Somerset, England.
Taken between roughly 4 and 5:30 a.m. local time (11:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. EDT), Dury's image combines 30 individual shots into a single epic time lapse that charts the full course of the lunar occultation. Saturn's rings are clearly visible as the planet slides behind the northwestern limb of the full moon, reappearing in the east about an hour later. Although the two objects appear to share the same patch of sky, Saturn is in fact hundreds of millions of miles farther away, making the occultation a cosmic optical illusion similar to a solar eclipse.