Again, like I’ve mentioned in my other moon shot posts, I still haven’t had enough of shooting moon pictures, especially since I still have to shoot my very first full moon. And what a full moon I got the chance to shoot. A full supermoon!
I would have missed shooting this full moon haven’t I been reminded by the tv newscaster about the ‘super moon’ up there that evening. So even though it was really late when I got back to the house, I set up my tripod outside and took my very first full moon and very first supermoon shots. Of course, the presence of clouds made me wait lots between attempts.
(I still have to figure out how to shoot a sharp moon with visible clouds surrounding it.)
Well, this would have been sort of novel were that ‘every 18 years’ myth was true. Turns out, it was a misconception.
Wikipedia has this to say about the supermoon (a term coined by someone called Richard Nolle back in 1979):
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“A perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system or “supermoon” is a full or new moon that coincides with a close approach by the Moon to the Earth. The Moon’s distance varies each month between approximately 357,000 kilometers (222,000 mi) and 406,000 km (252,000 mi) due to its elliptical orbit around the Earth (distances given are center-to-center).”
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Perigee-syzwhat? I got lost there after the first ‘y’ in ‘syzygy’. If you were as lost as I am but would want to clear things up a bit, you may go to Nolle’s website for a little enlightentment about the matter.
Here’s wikipedia’s pic of that same supermoon.
I actually don’t see much difference between this and other previous full moons I’ve seen. To the naked eye, the visual size difference is not very significant as to be detectable. In fact, hadn’t people been so abuzz about it, it would have been just like any other moonlit night. But hey, this is my first supermoon shot.