A STOCKSFIELD photographer has been left mystified by the appearance of what looked like a planet in his picture of last week’s supermoon.

Derek Sim took more than 20 shots of the moon from his garden in Stocksfield last Wednesday night, when the larger than usual supermoon loomed over the skies of Tynedale.

But on looking through his snaps, he discovered one of them showed a mysterious object close to the moon.

He said: “It looks like a planet near to the moon, but I’m not sure. Maybe it’s far beyond the moon and it’s the light that makes it look that way.

“I took over 20 photos and it only showed up on one.”

Mr Sim said the image could not have been caused by ghosting from his lens, because the lens had no filter on. He added that a fellow stargazer in Alaska had taken a 45-second video of the ‘planet’.

Supermoons happen when a full moon is closest to the Earth, making it appear bigger and brighter than normal.

Parts of the US, Asia, Australia and Russia got to see a full eclipse, which made the supermoon appear red in colour, known as a ‘blood moon’.

Can you identify the object in the picture or did you capture any similar shots? Contact news@hexham-courant.co.uk