Perigee Full Moon

Big super bright moon outside early morning Sunday 6May12.
The biggest brightest full moon of the year Saturday night.

Supermoon Wiki

Similar Border Effect

Sunrise Moon Nature Show

In the East - fabulous sunrise:


With the tele:


In the West - moon in trees:

I like how the tree branches seem to be holding up the moon.

Moon in clouds:


Moon again:


October's full moon is called Hunter's Moon.
Googling tells me it's supposed to be the smallest full moon of the year 2011, or furthest away from the earth.
Well, it was really beaming forth into the window right before the sun came up. Hard to ignore.

Moon

Full moon in the morning western sky.
I was playing around with different effects in Paint Shop Pro and liked this softborder effect.
It looks like it could be water in the background.
Or it could be looking out a window.

Autumn Photos And Super Harvest Moon

I was in Bismarck and some of the trees are so gorgeous I about went off the road gawking at them!
Crazy woman. :)
Some of the big trees are fully changed in color yet have all their leaves. Wow!

Here's a tele shot which captures the autumn splendor feeling I had.


Climbed the hill at Hillside Park for a city view.
(Can see the Capitol Bldg. from there.)



Virtual Tour



I'm at the dots furthest to the right, click on those, and it gives you panning views with skyscraper Capitol Bldg. (Made me a little woozy watching it). The park was redone summer 2009 and the only vehicle entrance now is off Boulevard Ave. Used to be able to drive up to that hillside view. Now you have to hike up there.

Still plenty green yet this year.
More color to come.

And further down the hill, tiny crab apples at my feet. (I think that's what they were.)


The moon was visible during part of the day, snapped that too.


Ah yes, a glorious autumn day, indeed.

How about some tunes with that:
Neil Young - Harvest Moon (1993)

What's up with the moon this time of year?

"Not since Sept. 23, 1991 has a full moon occurred on the same night as the fall equinox, and it won't happen again until 2029."

"...the Harvest Moon typically occurs a few days or weeks before or after the fall equinox. This year, though, the full moon occurs just six hours after the equinox, making it what Phillips called a Super Harvest Moon."

"The Harvest Moon gets its name from agriculture...farmers depended on bright moonlight to extend the workday beyond sunset."

(Quoting astronomer Tony Phillips.)

Why can I sometimes see the moon during daylight hours?
"The answer to your question has two parts: why is the moon VISIBLE during the day, and why is it even ABOVE THE HORIZON during daylight hours. ..."

"...there is one other object which is just BARELY bright enough to be visible in the daytime, besides the moon and sun: that's the planet Venus - the third brightest natural light source in the sky. ..."

Why does the Moon sometimes come out during the day?
"...think of the Sun as a large light bulb, and the moon as a large mirror..."

Clouds

Nifty storm clouds. It has been raining a lot recently. Get very interesting clouds on those day.


These next two I dug up out of my 2007 archives and tried clarify on them to bring out detail.
I call them ocean clouds.
One is a closeup of the other.
And yes, the moon was out.
Time/date stamp was about 11am on 2 Oct 07.

Sunset With The Tele

Sunday 29 Nov 09 at 5:13 pm

Zoomed in on the Sunset with the tele.
Surpised by the cloud detail.
Prettier closeup.





Taken with XSi and tele hand held on P Mode and ISO auto.
No post processing.

And on the other side?
A glowing moon, although you can't tell it's glowing on the pic.


The moon pic was taken with S3 cuz it does a better sharpen job on the moon hand held than the XSi and tele.
Tungsten white balance makes it blue. I put it on Manual mode, zoomed in max, and adjusted the shutter speed up until no blowouts on the moon.

Moon and Jupiter

Sat 13 Jun 09
5:22 a.m.
Now the star/planet is at the lower left of moon, so this must be Jupiter that is paired up with the moon in the Southern sky. (See previous post.)



Obviously over-exposed moon.

My next challenge was getting a good exposure of the moon without the planet getting too faint.

This is an example where the camera is *wrong* with exposure, so have to switch to manual mode and set the shutter speed myself.
Taken with my S3 point and shoot hand-held.
I tried spot metering but then the camera would not let me go maximum zoom.
I had it at maximum zoom so that takes care of the aperture setting, and then kept increasing the shutter speed until I didn't see any blowouts on the moon in-camera view.
1/125 shutter speed worked.
That moon is very bright.
I was worried the planet would be too faint, but I can still see it when image is full size.



Closeup of moon:


Fly Me To The Moon
Old Frank Sinatra video w-a-y back...1956.

Morning Twilight in June

Thur, 11 Jun 09
Near civil twilight
A little after 5 a.m.

Clear sky.
One very bright prominent star/planet in eastern sky.
Moon (3/4 full?) is in the southern sky and one very bright prominent star/planet to the upper left of it.

Pumped up the ISO to 400 and took some pictures hand-held with my S3 point and shoot.
It was a tad difficult trying to get everything I needed in order to get a perspective on it. (Hilly in background, trees in front, but just the tops, so added a little more ground.)

Southern Sky:



Eastern Sky:


I adore this time of day.
Sky is lighting up on the horizon.
Birds are already singing.
The birth of a new day.

I searched online, but could not figure out what planets those were.

One place says Mars and Venus are together.
Nope, that's not it.

Another place says Jupiter is seen with the moon but at the lower left.
Nope, that's not it.
Nice illustrative pic here, though.
The moon looks like the right shape at least. ;)

Hey, I could do that, just make an illustration of what I saw...





I referred to my photos to get the placements correct. The only thing from the camera in the illustrations is the moon, which I took about an hour later. I wanted to show the shape of the moon more clearly than the original which glowed too much. The rest was created in Paint Shop Pro. I have an evergreen brush I used to paint the trees in. I don't really care for the sunrise gradient, but it's the closest to original I could get.

NOTES:

Dawn vs Dusk vs Twilight

Dawn = morning (before sunrise)
Dusk = evening (after sunset)
when noticeable amount of sunlight in the sky

Twilight = both
Morning twilight starts at dawn and ends with sunrise
Evening twilight starts with sunset and ends with dusk

Twilight - 3 Kinds

1. Civil Twilight
starts (morning) or ends (evening)
when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon.
This is generally considered the limit of useable daylight.

2. Nautical Twilight
(aka Military Twilight)
starts or ends
when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon.
Marks limits of unassisted human vision.
"first light"
"nightfall"

3. Astronomical Twilight
starts or ends
when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon.
This marks the point at which there is no longer any detectable sunlight refracted in the atmosphere

REFERENCES/LINKS:

good-stuff UK
Sunrise, Sunset, Twilight and Dusk: FAQ

Twilight Definitions
Astronomical Applications Dept of U.S. Naval Observatory

Sunrise Sunset Table
Sun or Moon Rise/Set Table for One Year
Astronomical Applications Dept of U.S. Naval Observatory

Weather Underground
Weather and Twilight times by zip (search).

Wiki Twilight

IMAGE NOTES:
png file type gave better quality gradients than jpg file type.
Same or lower file size too.
Surprise.
I already knew gif's suck at gradients.

UPDATE: See post above this one for more moon pics.

Moon And Venus

Moon and Venus in the eastern sky at 6:24 a.m.

Post-processing: added a dash of cloud texture, lightened the blue tones a tad, removed the chromatic aberration on Venus, sharpened, added border, cropped of course.

Moon to Hide Venus
Sometime before or after sunrise Wednesday, April 22.

Moon On Water

Three of my photos:
1. starry night sky
2. moon
3. river water

Put all 3 pics on layers in Paint Shop Pro 9.
On moon pic, eliminate black background.

Darken the water with Hue/Sat/Light adjustment layer, since it was a day pic.
Delete bottom part of night sky and selection feather the bottom edge so it blends into the water.
Merge all, crop, resize, etc. (Should have sharpened a little at this point?)
Apply Flood plugin for the moon reflection on water.