Flag of Bellinsgauzenia

Flag of Bellinsgauzenia

Proportion	3:5
Adopted	August 12, 12010
Design	A purple flag with an oblong, orange ring.
Designed by	Devon Moore

The Flag of Bellinsgauzenia consists of an orange disk (representing an annular solar eclipse) within a dark purple field (representing the darkened sky). The "Eclipse Flag" was adopted on August 12, 12010, and a drastic change from the original version first adopted and designed by founder David Powell.

Design

Color

Unlike the debate of the color scheme of the Flag of the Federated States, Moore felt open to choose his colors and be proud of them. Moore wanted to use the colors purple and orange, as he considers these two colors the national colors of Antarctica.

Moore favored international orange and designed a unique purple (called "Bellinsgauzenian purple" or "Antarctic purple") which is a variant of Prussian blue and byzantium.

Scheme	Purple	Orange
RGB	0/0/205	255/79/0
Hexadecimal	533153	ff4f00

History

Powell design

The first flag of East Antarctica.

At the formation of the Federated States of Antarctica, President David Powell designed a flag for each of the seven states. The flag adopted for the State of East Antarctica was Canadian pale flag with a blue-white-blue pattern. In the central, white field, blue colored stars were placed in the pattern of the southern cross. The flag had the common 2:3 ratio.

Upon becoming Governor of East Antarctica, Devon Moore adopted a variant version of the flag with a 1:2 ratio, and a design more compatible to that of Canada. The new adoption continued to use the standard five-pointed stars, but were replaced months later with the Australian seven-point stars.

Moore redesign

The second flag of East Antarctica/Bellinsgauzenia.

Governor Moore stated on being nervous on changing the flag of his new state any further than the flag that was already adopted. Upon a conversation with David Powell, President Powell stated that the flags he adopted were "basic design," meaning they were only designed to be temporary flags. Upon his condolences, Moore adopted a new version, but merely replaced the color scheme. Replacing the white field with a black one, and replacing the Canadian pale scheme with a blue-black-yellow color scheme. Bordering the black field were two green bars. The flag coloring was inspired by that of Moore's proposed Flag of New Ukraine.

The southern cross still consisted of the Australian stars, but the color scheme was also changed. Three of the stars were purple, while the remaining two were orange. This was meant to represent the spectral type of the stars of Crux. The three purple stars (Alpha, Beta, and Delta Crucis) are B-type stars (much larger and hotter than the Sun), and glow a bluish-violet color. The two orange stars (Gamma and Epsilon Crucis) are K-type stars (cooler than the Sun, and glow orange). Moore also chose these colors because of his proposal that Orange and Purple should be the "Antarctic colors" (much like how Green and Yellow are the colors of Australia). Despite the viewers opinion, Moore disliked using the southern cross in any flag design for both the Federated States and Bellinsgauzenia, based on its religious symbolism, and that the southern cross is a design used in many national and sub-national flags.

Eclipse design

This picture of the annular eclipse over Spain in 12005 was the main inspiration for the "Eclipse Flag."

After the renaming of State of East Antarctica to the State of Bellinsgauzenia, Moore grew more interest in redesigning the flag from the flag used for East Antarctica, as it continued to be based on the design of Powell's "basic" flag. Upon thinking of new designs, Moore wished to avoid using the southern cross or any religious symbols in the flag, but favored using an astronomical symbol. Moore showed interest in using either the Sun or the Moon as a symbol, but both were already used commonly both national and religiously. One idea struck Moore as ingenious, combining the two objects in a natural way, a solar eclipse. The idea grew even more optimism from Moore as no national or sub-national flags use a solar eclipse.

Despite the interest of using an eclipse, Moore couldn't figure out how to incorporate the design into a flag. Upon searching for images of eclipses, Moore came across an image of an annular eclipse over Spain in 12005. From the image, it appeared as if the Sun was a ring in the black sky. Moore stated that he felt a "Eureka" moment when he combined this image with a flag idea. Moore adopted a flag idea similar to the flags of Bangladesh, Japan, and Palau as inspiration for a design. Moore favored an off-center disk, and with the disk towards the fly of the flag. Moore also adopted an orange solar disk, and a dark purple for the sky and Moon, keeping the "Antarctic colors."