March 19, 2011 Super Full Moon

[Stryker]

The March 19, 2011 full moon is a rare sight as it is closest to the earth the last one was 18 years ago. Astronomers call this one "The Super Full Moon"

 

[EckoZero]

A friend at work has tried to organise a night shoot with the other photographers in our building.
I for one will be giving it a miss - for 2 reasons:

1. I have driven 600 miles across 9 counties in 24 hours (I know a lot of you are American and 600 miles is nothing to you... but here in England that's almost south-point to north-point of the country!)
2. Why will the superfullmoon look good on a camera? I could take a picture of a fullmoon at any other point during the year, enhance the colour and use a crop to suggest it's bigger than it is...

Sorry, but to me, this superfullmoon will be something to take a glance up at the night sky for - not a photo opportunity.



[EDIT]Looking back on my post I realised I sounded like a grumpy arsehole. That wasn't my intention at all and I really like picture #2

What I was trying to say, in a non grumpy and constructive way was that any moon shot should be a good photo opportunity and a lot of people are getting very excited about the super full moon. I'm sure some excellent shots will come from it but for me it isn't worth the time or effort for an individual day over any other [/EDIT]

 

[tmartin2347]

That's so cool, great shot.

 

[Anisha Kaul]

The March 19, 2011 full moon is a rare sight as it is closest to the earth the last one was 18 years ago. Astronomers call this one "The Super Full Moon"

May I know your EXACT camera model? If you provide a link to that, it would be better for me.

 

[Stryker]

HI Anisha. I used a Canon 50D with a 70-200mm L f/4 IS USM lens on this shot. Link is: Flickr: meltimtiman's Photostream

 

[480sparky67 66]

I still don't understand all the hoopla about it. Yes, it's closer to us than normal. But wait until the next full moon, at it will be just 0° 0' 0.5" smaller.

Viewing the moon is like looking at a quarter at 20 feet. Step 11 inches closer, and that's the size the moon will be tonight.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but them's the facts.

 

[KmH]

Not many are aware of orbital mechanics, and have to rely on sensational journalism to be appraised of regularly occuring, routinue phenomena.

The Moon has a closest approach (perigee) every time it orbits Earth (or about once every 27.3 days). However, since Earth is revolving around the Sun (dragging the Moon with it) it takes 29.5 days for the Moon to show the same phase (new, 1st quarter, full, last quarter, etc).

So tonight the Moon will be at perigeee for this orbit (356,577 km from Earth), and because of libration (wobble in simple terms) we will see up to eight degrees of longitude of its eastern (right) side, in effect letting us see some of the far side of the Moon. (Often incorrectly called, the dark side of the Moon, incorrect because when the side of the Moon we see is New, and not lit, the far side of the Moon is full, and completely lit.)

The Moon moves closer and farther, higher and lower, and wobbles about, every orbit.

For those not aware of it, the Sun's gravitational pull on the Moon is over twice as great as the Earth's pull on the Moon, because the Sun has so much more mass than does Earth. The Sun has about 99.86% of all the mass in our solar system.

The Earth and the Moon essentially form a binary, or double, planet and the key point gravitationaly speaking, is that Earth-Moon point of mutual gravity inside Earth, but 4624 km from Earth's center (72.6% of Earth's radius), which defines the path of the Earth-Moon system in solar orbit.

The following illustration is to scale:

You can look at the perigee and apogee distances for the rest of the year here:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pacalc.html