The Supermoon...tonight & tomorrow.

[pwd72s]

Here in the Willamette Valley...no chance to see. Rain clouds, you know...

[masraum]

Embracing the "Supermoon," Hyped or Not - Sky & Telescope

Much has been said and written about the Moon's proximity to Earth today. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

About an hour ago I headed for the studios of WBUR, a terrific public-radio station in Boston, for a live interview on its syndicated "Here and Now" program. H&N's award-winning cohosts, Robin Young and Jeremy Hobson, are both really into what goes on in the skies above, and we often chat about celestial matters arising.

Yet it was with mixed emotions that I agreed to be on the show. On one hand, we here at Sky & Telescope really don't think today's so-called "supermoon" is that big a deal. Yes, the Moon is closer today than at any time since 1948. And, yes, it's about 8% bigger across and thus 16% bigger in area and brighter than average. And, yes, it's occurring during a full Moon.

In their respective blogs for S&T.com, veteran observers Bob King and Daniel Fischer offered some interesting ideas about perceiving the Moon's swollen orb. Fischer, in particular, believes the larger size can be noticeable.

Yet last night, which was wonderfully clear and even a little balmy by November standards, I looked at the Moon for a long time, intently — knowing that all those geometric rarities were occurring — and I couldn't convince myself that the Moon indeed looked bigger than usual.

Am I an inexperienced observer? Hardly. Is my eyesight that bad? Hmm. I asked around the S&T office. Most of my colleagues didn't think the enlargement was obvious, though one or two did. There was some consensus that the Moon looked brighter than usual, if not necessarily bigger. Here's Web Editor Monica Young's take:

"If I hadn't known last night's full Moon was 'super,' I probably wouldn't have noticed any difference when gazing up in a beautifully clear sky last night. I wasn't looking alone, though — and I have media hype to thank for that. The headlines inspired an impromptu star party at my house with a pair of five-year-olds who couldn't have been more excited to look at the Moon through my telescope. They noticed that the Moon was bumpy instead of smooth and that it was covered in circles. (That was before they began running in circles themselves.) Even the two-year-old was clamoring for a look."

And that's the crux of it. We all agree that the term "supermoon" creates artificially high expectations as to what an everyday person is going to see. On the other hand, it's undeniably a plus that lots of folks who wouldn't otherwise give the Moon a second look (or even a first one, for that matter) are heading outdoors to gaze upon the closest full Moon that many of them will likely see in their lifetimes.

. . . though probably not the brightest, due to something called the opposition surge. Right now the Moon is about 5½° south of the ecliptic, so each and every crater shows us a tiny bit of shadow. Were the full Moon right on the ecliptic — as it is just before and after a total lunar eclipse — there'd be no shadows at all and the opposition surge would cause the disk's brightness to jump upward of 20%. (I wish I had measurements to compare the brightness of last night's Moon with the extra-close one that coincided with September 2015's total lunar eclipse.)

[Don Ro]

The peak was the early hrs. of the 14th.

[yellowperil]

It was the tides that I noticed the most, mainly because I was at work during this time. Very high highs and very low lows during this phase.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

Woke up early this a.m. and took some pictures as it set over the mountain ridge.
Nothing too spectacular, but fun.
The moon really didn't seem that much larger than normal, but brighter and clearer.
The best part for me is getting out early and enjoying the clear cold night air, and then watching the sunrise while uploading the night pics.

Dude that lens is sick! Very nice moon shot.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

Dude that lens is sick! Very nice moon shot.

The camera isn't bad either. Canon EOS 5D mkIII. I'm assuming the lens is a 400mm and then he's got a 2x teleconverter to stack under it.

[Racerbvd]

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by masraum

The camera isn't bad either. Canon EOS 5D mkIII. I'm assuming the lens is a 400mm and then he's got a 2x teleconverter to stack under it.

HUH? You guys getting metadata info?????
5dIII 400mm2.8
but here's the catch.... I can't remember the teleconverters. The 400 gives the sharpest pic. The 1.4x gives a 560mm pretty good pic too. The 2x tele gives an 800mm but suffers from aberration. You can do a 400x1.4x200, but it gives a lousy pic quality. Out of frustration I usually just shoot 400 straight, but was playing with the teleconverters for fun that morning.
The weird thing is that with the supermoon, the 2X still gave a pretty good pic, which was a surprise for me. I think the two first pics were 400, and the full moon pic was a 800mm with the teleconverter 2x ( I think)
(editor's note- ) please keep in mind these toys were all pre- marriage / child bachelor toys. The days of glory are over until I win the lottery!I was wishing for the 5dIV though!!!

For settings, I think I went to one of the supplied links given on ppot, which suggested f11, iso200 and 1/200 shutter speed in manual as a start point and fidgetted from there.

NOTE- The most fascinating thing about this thread to me is the orientation of features relative to where we took the pics- for example- (and excuse me for being unfamiliar with moon anatomy)- the large crater hole is in the bottom of my pic in Virginia. In Australia?/New Zealand?, and in evidently FL as per Racerbvd pics, it is in the 9 o'clock position. I don't know if this is a time of day issue/ or a position of where we sit on the planet issue. What an amazing time we live in to be able to compare that!!!!!! Interesting.
Cheers,
R

[LEAKYSEALS951]

One thing that really stood out for me on this "supermoon" was the crater definition here (in racerbvd's pic):
He's got a higher clarity of these craters in his pic than mine.

As mentioned above, I was shooting 400 x 2, which cuts down on that kind of definition, so his kicks mine's ass... but what was interesting about the "supermoon", is that "full frontal" full moon pics usually don't show that type of topography. To get the best pic of that, it's oddly better to photo it in a 5/8ths? semi moon as opposed to full moon setting. To see that detail in a full moon setting was amazing to me, as usually you simply don't see the that kind of detail in a full moon. I caught it in some of my 400mm shots, but didn't get any here. I went out tonight to try to get a 3/4 shot but nothing was out. ARgh!!!!!

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Okay- total geek fest here...
That crater is in this postion at about 6:00pm est in usa Va:

At about5:00am in est virginia, it is at bottom 6:00 o clock (as oppesed to about 5:30position), so it all must be in where we sit on the planet as oppsed to time. I am talking about the white blast zone crater, not the dark ones. I am also wondering if the australian pic was inverted, or is really backwards in upside downland

[BeyGon]

I watched it from Catalina Island, it was beautiful, very red for the first few minutes, then more normal. Just beautiful coming up over the water, I had my IPhone but it didn't really take good pictures. The next morning the sunrise was spectacular, and the next was very good but not as good. I should have taken my wifes Canon and got some good shots of the color. but I didn't. Sunsets were hot for a few days too.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

HUH? You guys getting metadata info?????

5dIII 400mm2.8

I have a plugin in Firefox called "exify". I just put the cursor over images, and if the EXIF data is there, I see the basics.


There are other plugins that allow you to see more, but most require right-clicking and pulling up a box.

The weird thing is that with the supermoon, the 2X still gave a pretty good pic, which was a surprise for me. I think the two first pics were 400, and the full moon pic was a 800mm with the teleconverter 2x ( I think)

Yes and yes.

For settings, I think I went to one of the supplied links given on ppot, which suggested f11, iso200 and 1/200 shutter speed in manual as a start point and fidgetted from there.

Basically, you can go with the same settings that you'd use for a daylight shot. I'd probably open the Aperature up a bit to 5.6 or 8.0 and try to get the shutter speed down a little, especially at higher magnification.

NOTE- The most fascinating thing about this thread to me is the orientation of features relative to where we took the pics- for example- (and excuse me for being unfamiliar with moon anatomy)- the large crater hole is in the bottom of my pic in Virginia. In Australia?/New Zealand?, and in evidently FL as per Racerbvd pics, it is in the 9 o'clock position. I don't know if this is a time of day issue/ or a position of where we sit on the planet issue. What an amazing time we live in to be able to compare that!!!!!! Interesting.
Cheers,
R

Yeah, that's mostly due to time. Imagine this, the moon comes up and when it's just over the horizon, there's a big crater at the top. That crater will stay in that position, but when the moon has passed overhead, and is getting ready to set in the morning, the crater that was at the top will be at the bottom. when the moon is straight overhead, the location will depend more upon which direction the person holding the camera is facing than anything else.

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

One thing that really stood out for me on this "supermoon" was the crater definition here (in racerbvd's pic):
He's got a higher clarity of these craters in his pic than mine.

As mentioned above, I was shooting 400 x 2, which cuts down on that kind of definition, so his kicks mine's ass... but what was interesting about the "supermoon", is that "full frontal" full moon pics usually don't show that type of topography. To get the best pic of that, it's oddly better to photo it in a 5/8ths? semi moon as opposed to full moon setting. To see that detail in a full moon setting was amazing to me, as usually you simply don't see the that kind of detail in a full moon. I caught it in some of my 400mm shots, but didn't get any here. I went out tonight to try to get a 3/4 shot but nothing was out. ARgh!!!!!

I also noticed that they were great looking shots, not blurry or upside down or sideways like so many of Byron's photos.

A big part of the reason is probably because when he took his shots, the moon wasn't quite full. (I think it was supposed to be the most full one morning, so you were probably about as full as it gets) The side that wasn't full yet is where you're seeing the extra detail. The most boring short of the moon with respect to amount of detail seen is usually a full moon. Anything less will show more interesting detail because at the edge of the light/dark boundary, there are more shadows. Also, one side of the moon has more cratery detail than the other and that makes that side more interesting. This is not to take away from how great Byron's shots were, just trying to say that if you'd taken your shots at the same time, you'd probably have had more similar results.

Not that this photo is that awesome, but you can see how the detail at the edge of the light boundary adds more to see.


similar here.
The moon by smasraum, on Flickr

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Fascinating!
Yup... this is what I was trying to capture but haven't found one yet.:


That plugin/ firefox program is sneaky!


I had a 10 second delay on the settings, and usually run through a battery of time/iso/f stop settings to find the best, but got lazy that night. Another thing, the wind picked up to gusting as I was shooting, so a more open f stop and quicker shutter speed would really have probably helped out a lot!

Thanks!
Ron

[LEAKYSEALS951]

See. now you were just holding back!!!! Wow!!!!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

Okay- total geek fest here...
That crater is in this postion at about 6:00pm est in usa Va:

At about5:00am in est virginia, it is at bottom 6:00 o clock (as oppesed to about 5:30position), so it all must be in where we sit on the planet as oppsed to time. I am talking about the white blast zone crater, not the dark ones. I am also wondering if the australian pic was inverted, or is really backwards in upside downland

Hmm, I was thinking that I'd taken pics where the apparent position was different from night to morning, but I can't find any of those, so you may be right.

[masraum]

I took a couple of shots the night of the supermoon. I was disappointed by them. The moon didn't turn out as crisp, but that's one of the problems with shooting just over downtown with all of that heat just after sunset. You get the distortion due to the heat in the air. It's not bad at shorter focal lengths, but at 400 or if you crop it down, bleh.

Supermoon over Houston by smasraum, on Flickr

Supermoon over Houston by smasraum, on Flickr

It's also a bit of a bummer that if you want detail in the moon, you don't expose enough to get much detail in the buildings, and if you want the buildings, you blow out the moon. I should have tried multiple exposure/hdr.

[Don Ro]

Supermoon over St. Augustine Cathedral, Tucson, AZ.
~~~~~~~`