The Big Moon

Perhaps you heard some of the commotion about this past Saturday's full moon being the biggest one in 18 years or some variation there-of. Turns out that because the moon's orbit isn't perfectly circular, it occasionally gets closer to Earth, and that's what happened during this full moon. So it appeared to be about 14% larger in the sky, which is really not enough of a difference to tell with the naked eye. But it was nice and bright, and it gave me an excuse to go out and shoot some pictures. I wish I had remembered earlier in the day, I would have tried to get a nice cityscape or something with the moon in it. I spotted it rising over the middle of the road I was driving down, and it was quite the impressive site, but there wasn't enough time to whip the camera out and shoot it. This shot was from about 20 minutes later as it finally rose over the other condo buildings in my complex. Everywhere I looked, people were outside looking at the giant moon. But I was the only one with a long lens trained on it. :)

The Next Full Moon

Last time we had a full moon, there was an eclipse, and I was all excited about shooting it. Then I got sick and missed it. Sad, that. But here's the full moon this evening, just after moonrise, when it's still orange from the sunset. I need to check and see when the next eclipse is...

Next Week

I've got a chance next week to shoot another full lunar eclipse, and I'm a little excited.  This composite photo is from the last eclipse I shot in 2008.  This was a couple of cameras ago, and with a 300mm lens if I remember correctly.  This time around I've got a 400mm L series lens, and an 18MP digital sensor, so I should be able to get some great shots if the weather cooperates.  Probably going to be pretty cold, and the fireworks don't start until after midnight, so we'll see. Wish me luck!

A Full Moon

I guess the moon went full this morning around 2 am. So I got busy and took this picture before work around 7. Not too bad.

Two Nights In A Row

I was going to do a series of moon shots for you, but since it's cloudy and raining outside tonight, I guess my number of days in a row is going to end at two. So here are two shots of the waxing moon, one from Friday night and the other from Saturday. Pretty cool, eh? The Saturday shot is a little overexposed compared to the Friday shot. I didn't have as much time to play with it and try a bunch of different settings on the camera, but I think both of them are more than acceptable. The magnification on these is huge, with a 400mm lens, a 2x teleconverter and a 1.4x teleconverter, plus the 1.6x crop factor of an EF-S sensor, for a total of 1344mm! That's a lot of zoom.

I know that stacking teleconverters is a no-no, leading to lots of image degradation, but until I get much longer and better lenses, I'm pretty happy with these shots.

Almost Full

As I got in my car after work this evening, I noticed the moon was already up. It's almost full, and I think tomorrow night is the big night. Lucky for me, I've still got that nice 400mm lens, so I pulled it out and squeezed off a few shots. I think this is pretty impressive. Although I'm starting to entertain notions of renting a 600mm prime lens for a few hundred dollars some day... It's an addiction I tell you!

Tonight's Moon

I went out to shoot the sunset at the beach this evening, which I may or may not share pictures of, but I noticed that the moon was already up, so I couldn't pass up the shot. This is the view as seen by my new 7D combined with a 400mm lens. Compare this to some of my older shots with fewer pixels and cheaper optics, and you'll see that it's a much better picture. Gotta love progress!

The Moon On Halloween

Here's a picture of the almost-full moon tonight. It's not quite full, but I think that's going to happen tomorrow. I haven't shot the moon in quite a while, but there it was tonight, almost daring me to try and take it's picture. So I did.

A Different Moon

You're looking at a piece of the Moon. This is a different piece than the one I showed you before. This one was at the Smithsonian Air And Space Museum in Washington, DC. Same deal as the one at KSC though, it's glued down pretty tight and you can barely touch it behind all the plexiglass, but you can touch it. I bring you this just so I can link to some incredible pictures that NASA just released. I've had people ask me before why they can't see the Apollo landing sites on the Moon from Earth-based or space-based telescopes (such as Hubble). (For one thing, Hubble can't focus in on objects that close, but that's another story. Nope, I'm wrong!) Well, the largest object mankind left on the moon was the lunar lander, which is about 12 feet in diameter. Spotting something that small from the Earth would be like trying to tell if the dime you dropped at the summit of Everest landed heads up or tails up, only you're looking back after you've made it home to Florida. It's just too small at too great a distance. Well, guess what? NASA recently launched a new probe to the moon to take some high-resolution surveys for a possible future moon mission. And what have they taken pictures of? Five of the six moon landing spots, that's what, and you can just barely make out the fact that there's something there. The probe is about 70 miles above the lunar surface, and the lunar landers make up about 4 pixels in the pictures. But what really stand out are the shadows being cast when the sun is low on the horizon. The shadows make up many more pixels, and stand out much more sharply. In fact, one site, shot at just the right time of day with near-perfect lighting conditions actually revealed trails blazed by the astronauts as they went back and forth performing experiments. It's only a matter of time before we get some really startling images of these landing sites, proving to all the doubters once and for all that Man has set foot on the Moon. And in fact, he left an awful lot of junk laying around up there. Shame, that

Moon Over Maryland

Before I forget to post it, here's a shot of the moon over Easton, Maryland, last Sunday morning, about 2:00 am. Looks pretty much the same as the moon here in Florida, I guess, but when I see it, I gotta shoot it.

The Big Moon

Don't know if you read about it, but the full moon on Friday night was supposed to be as large as it ever gets. The moon was as close as it ever gets to the Earth, and thus is as big as it ever gets. I almost forgot, but I remembered later and pulled out the camera for a couple of shots. I don't know that it actually looked any larger, but it was certainly bright.

Moon Over Gotham

Turns out they have the same moon up here in Manhattan that we have down in Florida. Who knew...

Full As It Gets

I almost missed the full moon last night, and then I almost didn't get a chance to post the picture today. But I didn't, and then I did, so here's the shot I know you've all been waiting for. Looks to my eyes like there was some haze in the air, or, more likely, some thin clouds when I shot this. I know there were plenty of clouds about, but I thought they'd all passed when I shot this. But I don't think it's as sharp as the full moon from last month.

The Waxing Moon

See! It's getting bigger!

Look Who's Back

This is the first time I've seen the moon since the last picture I showed you, about eleven days ago. Around here, it clouds up and rains in the afternoons, and often it remains cloudy the rest of the night. So I haven't been able to spot the moon for a while. But tonight, as I sat at the computer recording some more Christmas music, there she was. So I ran outside and got you this shot. Enjoy!

Gone

I tried to get you a shot of the moon today, but it wasn't there. It was a little cloudy when I went out to shoot it this morning, and I couldn't find the little tiny sliver of the moon that I was expecting. I couldn't even find it later in the day once the sun had come up. I guess it's gotten so small that it fades to nothing in the bright daylight. It was a fun series while it lasted, but I think the fun is over now. Oh well.

Going, Going

I've been saying it's almost gone for several days now, as it gets smaller and smaller each morning, yet I continue to shoot the moon, so to speak. This was this morning right after 6 AM. It's almost too low in the sky for me to be able to see it over the buildings across the street. We'll see what happens about 8 hours from now when I check tomorrow morning. You can follow the progress from the last couple of weeks by going here next.

Moon Over Daytona

I may have missed the moon on Sunday, but I got the one this morning. This was a little before 6 am this morning, just outside the hotel I was staying at in Daytona Beach. I'm pretty sure it would have looked exactly the same if I had shot it here in Sarasota, I just happened to be in a different spot. There's really not too much left here, so I don't know how many more days I can shoot it. It's getting harder and hared to get the right exposure, too. But that's my problem, not yours. The previous shot I actually got in this little series is here.

Early Morning Moon

Sure enough, I was able to drag myself out of bed for a few minutes this morning around 5 am to get you today's moon picture. We're down to less than half of the face being visible, so it's starting to get interesting. You can work your way in reverse (it'll look like it's waxing instead of waning) by clicking here.

Moon Over My House

Here's your daily moon shot. This was early this morning outside the front door of the condo. She's almost half gone now. I'm going to have to work awfully hard to drag myself out of bed tomorrow when I don't have to get up and go to work. And all for a simple picture of the moon. Wish me luck. You can work your way backwards through the series by heading here.