Rising Moon

After years of looking at the Moon and photographing it for the past few, I still have to admit that it is one of my favorite night sky objects. Even though when it is up it washes out a good portion of the other objects, I never get tired of looking at it. I finally had the chance to catch a wonderful event - a full Moon rising from the horizon when it was large and orange.

I went out on July 24, 2010 with my good friend Bob of Blackholes and astrostuff fame. We were on time and set up and ready to go, but where the heck was the Moon? Our Moon phase info was accurate and we knew it was up, but what in the world was going on? It turns out that for one, there was a lot of forest-fire smoke in the sky above the horizon where we were looking for the Moon. The next problem is that we were out in our calculation of where it would be rising. So, by the time we noticed it, it had risen a couple of Moon widths from the horizon. No worries though, all turned out well and we were able to catch some decent shots.

The next night, July 25, 2010, we were both out at separate locations shooting the Moon again. It was cloudy in the area it was rising, but alas, the clouds dissipated and the Moon was out in full force. It was huge to say the least and looked amazing. I wish I had my telescope with me that night to take some Moon pictures through that, but I didn't. No problem. I managed to get some shots I was very happy with. Below are photos from both evenings. All were shot using a tripod-mounted Nikon D90 with a 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lens and a 1.5x teleconverter, with a remote shutter release. Enjoy.

Orange Moon

"I'm an orange Moon

I'm an orange Moon

Reflecting the light of the Sun"

Orange Moon - Erykah Badu

I was driving home last night and the Moon was beautiful. It was orange. Most of the rest of the sky was cloudy, but there was the orange Moon, just floating there. I was able to capture it before it clouded over. The current Moon is referred to as an apogee Moon due to the distance from the Earth it is. The Moons average distance is about 380,000 km. An apogee Moon is at it's furthest point from the Earth. It is about 406,000 km away right now. A perigee Moon can get as close as about 360,000 km. Enjoy.