The last week of October (2019) was very busy for me with planed and unplanned events that I photographed.
On Saturday evening (26th) there was a thunderstorm a bit from me so most of the lightnings were far. and yet some were very close like this one.
There are several methods to capture lightnings. One way is to put a camera on tripod and set it for long exposures of 5 seconds, hoping to catch something. If the storm is heavy you can try and take a video, even with your smartphone, using the slow motion option, which works better than regular video even that it has a limited duration.
A lightning 26-Oct-2019
On Sunday I noticed lightnings in a very far cloud (70 km from me). It was very strange to see these far away lightnings within the cloud as can be seen in this short movie.
A longer version is in you tube
Tuesday (29th) was the first option to see the new moon. Stating with a nice sunset, I spot the moon, and as a bonus Venus and Mercury were close as well.
In the photo with all three it is clearly seen that while Venus is more or less on the ecliptic, The moon is norther and Mercury is to the south.
sunset 29-Oct-2019
The new moon 29-Oct-2019
Mercury is between the wires of the antenna at the bottom left of the photo
The new moon, Venus and Mercury 29-Oct-2019
In the following photo, earthshine is visible, light reflected from the Earth to the Moon and back again to Earth make us see even the dark parts of the moon and its entire disc.
The new moon 29-Oct-2019
Just two days later a close conjunction (about 1 deg) of Jupiter and the moon
The moon and Jupiter 31-Oct-2019
And only two days later, just a few hours after the conjunction with Saturn
Although I don't care too much about supermoons, I always like to see the full moon rising and this evening just 17 minutes after sunset I had a chance to see and take some photos.
The next photos clearly show why I can't see the exact moon rise. There ar mountains to the east which blocks the horizon. It requires about 60 minutes driving to pass them (not including evening traffic jams!)
moon rise
moon rise
A nice surprise was an airplane which was considering enough to cross the moon.
moon rise and an airplane
And in the video notice how the hot gases from the engines twist the photo
Here is the full movie of the moonrise at 4x speed
High clouds continued the following evening so I took some other fine photos:
Sunset 4-Dec-2017
And the following photo reminded me the famous scene from "Apocalypse now".
A helicopter in sunset
One hour after sunset the moon rose
moonrise 4-Dec-2017
moonrise 4 Dec-2017
And later that night a compelte 22deg moon halo, The entire winter-hexagon is visible including the Orion group.
From time to time, you hear news about a big and bright moon that has not been seen in the last ten, twenty, or even a hundred years. Such moons have the nickname, "supermoon". Here are some facts and information about supermoons. All numbers and times relate to the supermoon of November 14,2016.
What is a supermoon?
A supermoon is a term for a full moon that is near perigee. The perigee is the point in the moon's orbit that is closest to earth. The moon is full once a month and also at perigee once a month. From time to time, the moon is both full and near perigee around the same time and the result is a somewhat larger and brighter moon, a.k.a. "supermoon".
What will be the distance to the current supermoon?
The closest distance to the moon varies each month and averages around 357,000 kilometers. The earth's distance from the current supermoon will be 356,511 kilometers (227,118 miles). This distance is the distance between the earth's and moon's centers. The exact times (UTC) are:
Moon at Perigee 13:24
Full Moon 15:54
The moonrise varies for different locations.
Is the change of the moon's size significant?
The difference between a distant moon ( >400,000 km) and a close moon is indeed significant and can reach 40,000 km which are 14% of the distance. This difference has an impact on the apparent size of the moon and 14% is is the number you will probably see in the news; however, I think they should calculate the difference based on the average distance of the moon, which is just half of that.
The best (and only) way to see that difference is to take two photos and compare them. See the image below for example:
The smallest distance since 1948
Headlines such as "Nearest moon since 1948" are factually correct but are meaningless. As mentioned above the distance is between the earth's and moon's centers. The distance of the moon to a specific observer on earth is different and changes throughout the night as the earth revolves.
Since 1948, there have been many others supermoons, some of them only 100 km farther than this supermoon. But if an observer on earth sees the moon before or after the exact perigee, this 100 km is negligible to the change due to earth's rotation (which is 6300 km about the same as earth's radii, in just a few hours). Such small changes of 0.1% have no effect on the moon's apparent size. It might be that for a given observer in a given location, there was a nearer moon after 1948.
Why is the moon orange or particularly large when it rises?
The red rising moon is due to the atmosphere and the big rising moon is an illusion. Read more about the large red moon here. Both phenomena are not related to the moon being a supermoon.
Will I see any difference in the size of the moon?
Probably not. If you go out and look at the full moon you, will see that it is very bright. Maybe you'll notice it is brighter than the previous evening's moon, but that is true for every full moon. To see a change in the moon's size, you will have to compare the moon to something. To what? It is more or less the same as the day before and certainly one can't recall how a very far away moon looked several months ago. If you want to compare the difference in the size of the apparent moon, you need patience. Take some pictures, wait patiently for seven months (When then the full moon will be distant) and then take more photos.
What about the brightness of the moon?
The brightness of the moon is a whole new ball game. The moon's apparent size depends only on its distance, but the brightness depends on other factors as well. So if the news reports about the distance are at least credible to some extent, the reports on the brightness are almost always completely wrong.
Explanation:
The two most obvious factors that affect the brightness of the moon are the moon's distance from the earth and also the earth's distance from the sun. As the two of them are the smallest possible, the brightness increases. The earth is close to the sun at the beginning of January, which is part of the reasons why this November's supermoon arrived the news.
Are there more important factors to the brightness of the moon?
Yes, there are more, and the most important of is the phase angle, which relates to the distance of the moon (in degrees) from the ecliptic. The farther the moon, the less bright it will be. For the current supermoon, the moon is more than 5 degrees from the ecliptic so it will not be so bright after all.
When will the moon be the brightest?
Suppose we have a full moon at perigee (closest to earth), we assume that the earth is at perihelion (closest to the sun), and we assume that it is also just on the ecliptic. In this situation, the moon would be at its brightest. But under these conditions, we would be in the middle of a very deep lunar eclipse, which is a great event to observe, but the moon is not seen at all. For this reason, the moon has a theoretical maximum brightness limit, but that limit can never be observed.
When will be the brightest moon that can be observed?
Think again about the conditions in the previous section. The only compromise that can be done is that the moon will not be full, but just a little before or after (a difference of few hours) which means that the moon is as close as possible to earth, the earth is as close as possible to the sun, and the moon is almost full. This is just before or after a full lunar eclipse.
When is the next lunar eclipse with these conditions?
The last supermoon eclipse was January 9,2001, and the next time will be an eclipse on December 12, 2114. The brightest supermoon between 1800-2200 will be on January 3, 2151, when the earth is almost at perihelion. These dates are from the book, "More Astronomical Morsels" by Jean Meeus.
So what is all the fuss about?
As usual, much ado about nothing. But if such news will make people go out and observe the moon, so be it. The full moon and especially the rising of the moon are always an experience. Take a look for yourself in the video attached!
What other things you recommend we observe?
The moon is always interesting to observe. Even a small pair of binoculars will show many details on its surface, which change daily depending on the phase of the moon. Eclipses are always interesting, and conjunctions of the moon and planets or bright stars are interesting. Actually, one day after this supermoon, on November 15, 20161, the moon will cover the star Aldebaran in Taurus. This occultation will be visible to observers in Southeast Asia.
More questions?
Write them in the comments and I'll be happy to answer!
Oops, I did that again! After almost 19 months I was able to take again a video of the ISS passing the moon! (Here is the story of the first time I caught the ISS and the moon).
I am receiving alerts from calsky site about satellites crossing the moon, but I usually ignore them since most of the time it is a very small satellite which requires telescopes and to find the exact place, but this alert was different.
What are the chances to see an ISS pass? Very high, it happens all the time. what are the chances that the ISS will cross the moon? I think that *somewhere* it also happens all the time. But what are the chances that the crossing will happen exactly at your house?? Ohm. Small, rather small.
But improbable things happens all the times and as I got the alert I checked the predictions (see the appendix) and saw that indeed all I need to do is to go outside to my roof.
Even the problematic hour 4:56am did not bother me. I decided for the best configuration for my equipment and made all setups I could the evening before. I set an alarm and went to sleep early.
Getting up at 4:15 the skies are full of clouds, ignored them and continue to setup the system. Clouds come and goes and there is plenty of time, so just hope for the best. I aligned the mount and put my 70mm doublet on it with Canon700d on video mode.
I use a Nikon 900P camera with a mighty zoom on a regular tripod without tracking and an old Canon SX30 for backup. Ten minutes before the pass and everything was entirely cloudy. Five minutes before the pass the sky was clear.
Waiting. Here it is! Above the moon and going down so quick. Fast. Press record here, here and here! make a last alignment for the non-tracked Nikon camera and wait.
I took a look at the eyefinder to see if it catches the ISS but saw nothing. I looked at the ISS and saw that it already passed the moon. Well maybe the predictions were no that accurate and it missed the moon in a degree that is possible, nothing to do about that. Turn off all recordings, take apart everything I can without making too much noise (5am in the morning) and check what happened on the computer.
Happily, I found out that all three cameras captured the ISS. Most of the pass was on the dark side of the moon and only a fraction of it on the lit side. Here are the results combined into a single view. Please look at it on full screen with HD resolution
I tried to extract a single image from the video but the ISS was too smudged. I think that The Nikon camera went back to its default 30fps and not to the 60fps I set it up before. Always check your setup again, even if you are too tired at 4am! The ISS is the white little line on the dark side of the moon.
The ISS flies over the moon
Some hints and tips for the next time
One problem of such videos/photos is that it is hard to practice. The duration of the pass is one second or less. My recommendations for the next time are:
Take the highest FPS you can: 60 120 or even 240 (with iPhone aligned to the eyepiece)
Practice on a regular moon without the ISS
To freeze the ISS use 1/1600 shutter speed
If you have a DSLR with a high zoom lens, use burst mode and don't take video.
Have fun doing all of that!
Appendix: Check predictions in Heavens-Above Heavens-Above is a great site to get information about ISS and other passes. Try it out, it is simple and intuitive.
When selecting a pass you see a general map of it. Vawalla! The pass is on the moon!
Heavens-Above prediction of the pass - regular
This is not certain tough and you must press the map to get t magnify. If in the magnified map the pass is on the moon, you can start preparing your gear, but take into account that as it implies, these maps are predictions only.
A conjunction between the moon and any planet is a monthly event. Not rare but always a pleasure. This post will be updated with photos and reports about Jupiter and moon conjunctions:
2016-03-22: The moon is further away from Jupiter but rose just below it giving a chance for interesting compositions:
The moon and Jupiter 22/3/16
The moon and Jupiter 22/3/16
The moon and Jupiter 22/3/16
The moon and Jupiter 22/3/16
Can you see my shadow?
2016-Mar-21
There was a not-so-close conjunction.
I first saw (and photoed) Jupiter about 10 minutes before sunset (17:45 15:45 UT), the distance to the moon was about 5 degrees:
The moon 17:45
The moon and faint Jupiter (Bottom left)
And two other photos from 21:00 am (1900 UT) the distance is shorter, just 4 degree. The moon is the same but the background is completely black adding more contrast
The moon 21:00
This photo is a single exposure. Jupiter is big enouch and bright enough to seen as a small disc with a yellow/orange color (You might need to enlarge the photo). As you can see I manage to capture both of them at the maximum zoom possible.
During the last year (and the one to come) there is an occultation of Aldebaran almost every month. However none of these occultations were visible from Israel. Not until today. Even when we finally can see the occultation, it was during the day, making it impossible to see with the naked eye.
Though let's not panic, Aldebaran is bright enough and can easily be seen with a telescope. The sky was not very clear but as I saw that it was only partially cloudy, I left work early and headed home to setup the telescope.
The first problem was to setup the mount correctly without seeing Polaris. Of course I should have set it up the night before but I was worried it might rain during the night and I didn't want to leave it outside even with a cover. So I "guesstimated" where the north is and hoped for the best, knowing that I would be making manual corrections during the observation.
Positioning the scope was easy. Next, I had to decide how to photograph the reappearance of Alderbaran. I chose a new method, which I had never tried previously, as I was using my brand new Nikon Coolpix P900 with an enormous zoom piggybacked on the scope.
Everything was ready and I just had to wait. I started a video recording and watched through the eyepiece. It was quite windy so the camera shook a little but in the video, you will be able to see the moon and suddenly a bright white dot! Yep - Aldebaran! Seeing it clearly through the eyepiece (in small magnification) was a very spectacular sight indeed.
So who said is it impossible to see stars during the day? BTW, Aldebaran's distance from Earth is 65 light years (the moon is only 1 light second) and its radius is 44 of that of the Sun. A real giant!
First of all here is a photo of my setup:
My telescope and camera
Exact setup is: Bresser N130 on EQ6-Pro (For visual) + Nikon P900 piggyback for the photos and videos.
Here is the video and some photos. In the video Aldebaran appears after about 6 seconds position equivalent to 2 o'clock. (make sure that you watch the video in HD on full screen).
You will probably need to enlarge the photo as well. Notice Aldebaran on the bottom right (4 o'clock).
Aldebaran just 4 minutes after reappearance
And a photo when it got darker and Aldebaran could be seen with the naked eye
Today (Jan 7th 2016) there was a very nice planetary trio. The moon, Venus and Saturn formed an almost equilateral triangle in the early dawn sky. The distance between any pair of celestial bodies was about 2.5 degrees.
All orbs were in the constellation Ophiuchus (Oph). There are only 12 signs in the zodiac but in the modern division of the sky into constellations, it turns out that the sun also travels through Ophiuchus for some days in the year (The moon can be in even more constellations!)
Here are some photos
The trio. Venus is very bright and Saturn is the dimmer star below.
The moon Venus and Saturn
A wide field photo with part of Scorpio constellation in the right side of the photo. You will probably need to enlarge the photo to see it properly, and even see some of the red hue of Antares. Scorpio is a summer constellation and in the winter it rise just shortly before sunrise.
The moon Venus and Saturn
Using longer exposure we can see the Earthshine and many dim stars. You will need to enlarge this as well. Notice HIP81695 which is on the right limb of the moon and two small stars (HIP81632 and HIP81754) above Saturn.
The moon Venus and Saturn
The last photo is on brighter sky just before sunrise.
Another miss for 23-Dec-2015. Occultation seen from Europe but not from Israel. This time I just took 4 different photos and put them together to demonstrate the fast movemet of the moon
Almost occultation of Aldebaran 23-Dec-2015
It was very near, but no occultation from my place. After five days of rains I almost forgot from this event but as I looked at the moon I noticed a bright star so close to it. I knew there wont be an occultation from my place but I forgot that it will be that close.
So I took my camera (Canon SX50 HS) out and this is how it was 2030 (UTC) about 45' apart (from edge of moon). Taking both objects in one shot is not simple as the moon is about 10000 brighter. Aldebaran is in the lower left
Moon and Aldebaran 2015-10-29
About an hour later the moon gets nearer (The moon moves, Aldebaran is fixed) and as a bonus a bird fly in front of the moon)
Moon and Aldebaran 2015-10-29
After another 45 minutes the moon is really close. So close that I can't see Aldebaran with the naked eyes anymore and needs binoculars. However the camera sees it perfectly and just 30 minutes more to the closest point.
Moon and Aldebaran 2015-10-29
As it turned out, a huge cloud came and rain again so no chance for more photos, so good night (0030 here) until the next chance...
At first I thought it is a photo-montage, later I though it is an hoax but finally I understood that it is real and that gave me a lot to thought about. Not everyday you see something from such a new point of view. So what is it?
The far (and illuminated) side of the moon. NASA
Clearly we see the Earth in the photo but what is the other orb? The first impression was that it is another of the photos which shows Pluto and Earth, but that's not Pluto. It is our own moon.
- But the moon doesn't look like that at all!
You are right, the near side of the moon, the only side that we can see from Earth doesn't look like that, but the unseen FAR side of the moon is what we see in this photo. Lets remind that the FAR side is the half of the moon that we can't see from Earth. The moon has a dark and light side but they are changing as the moon rotates around its axis (Just like day and night on Earth). A new moon is when the NEAR side that we see is also the dark side (All the sunlight is on the far side). A full moon is when the near side is fully illuminated. In between we see part of the lighted-side and part of the dark side.
DSCOVR spaceship which is between the Earth and the sun captured that image. The camera nickname is EPIC and the photo is epic indeed. Never before did we saw such a thing. DSCOVR is about 1.5 Million KM from earth at a point where the Earth and Sun gravitational force is balanced making the spaceship more or less "float" there.
DSCOVR's orbit. Nasa
The moon is very grey. This is the real color of the moon, it seems white to us only because it s so bright in the skies. Photos from the moon surface are also grey.
DSCOVR took many photos and NASA combined them to a stunning video
This is a totally new way to observe new moon (Which is a full moon on the far side). Usually you can see an 18 hours old moon. during solar eclipse you can get a hint of the new moon (you don't see the moon, but you see that it is there blocking the sun).
Everything is relative. Just change your point of view and a new moon becomes full. It is also another demonstration that you can always see new sides in familiar objects, and that Earth indeed is not the center of the solar system, the universe, or anything. It gives new perception about our little world. We see such photos of Earth back from Apollo and before and the "Earthrise" famous photo of Apollo 8 was mind-breaking. I was not around here at that time, but maybe this photo makes me feel similar feelings.
We will have other chances to see the familiar near side when it is almost half a lunar moon. We will see it goes BEHIND the Earth, and since it will be much further away from DSCOVR (1.9m KM and not 1.1m) it will be much smaller than the moon in this picture. It will be interesting to see the opposite as well. Full moon on earth and from 1.5m km a big black circle occultating Earth. Maybe in time that will happen as well.
Another theoretical possibility is to put a spaceship 15m KM from Earth and covering a whole cycle of a lunar moon. However there is no scientific value for such photos so I guess we will have to do with simulations.
One of my hobbies is to spot the new moon as early as possible. Seeing the moon and setting the months in accordance to the new moon setting has an important role in the old Hebrew calendar. The current Hebrew calendar is based on calculations so the beginning of a new month can drift a day or two from the actual day that the new moon is seen from Israel.
This month, the new moon was at 21/1/2015. I was able to see the moon about 15 minutes after sunset. It depends on the moon age (26 hours in this case) and its location and of course the observer location. The moon was about 5 degrees north of the ecliptic which means that it could be seen in the sky more than a hour after sunset. this was an easy moon to spot but seeing it while there is still light is still a challenge. Venus however is so bright that it was easy to see it even before sunset. This is no wonder since you can see Venus during the day easily.
So here are just a few pictures before we are going to talk about timelapses.
The first moon is from 17:17 and it may take a while to find the thin crescent of the moon.
The new moon (you will see it when you enlarge the photo - just click over it)
After some minutes it is darker and Venus is clearly visible and also Mercury almost at the same line of the moon and to its left.
The new moon Venus and Mercury
The new moon Venus and Mercury
If you enlarge the next photo you will see some red light from a passing airplane over the moon.
The new moon Venus and Mercury
I am getting addicted to timelapses. They are fun to plan, easy to carry out and looks so charming. You don't need fancy equipment. You can do them with your smartphone as well. I am using a Canon700d for the timelapses. I used an intervalometer which enables me to see the number of photos I want and the time between each photo. If you use a smartphone there are bunch of software which will do that for you, but you will probably needs an external power source. also a tripod adapter is necessary for best results (You can buy them for few bucks in china, the intervalometer as well). I will write a longer article about timelapses in the future.
This time I thought that a photo every 2 seconds will be OK. I changed the photo resolution to a moderate size (there is no need for 24M files for an HD video), and let it work for 80 minutes. I had 2400 photos and used the freeware "virtual dub" to create the following timelapse. make sure to watch it on a full screen and in HD resolution (you might need to open it in YouTube site for it)
The video starts from the first time I saw the moon until Venus sets. As it gets darker more stars become visible.
So what's next? Next month 19-22 February, Venus and Mars will be very close in the sky. In the 20th, the new moon will also be there for US observers (I will miss that :-( ), so check up your gear, see if you need a larger memory card, get your intervalometer or suitable APP, do some tests and try to take your own great timelapse.
On Sunday 28/12/2014 I finally managed to photograph the ISS crossing the moon. The timing and location must be very accurate. The moon is only half a degree in the sky and the time it takes the ISS to pass over the moon is less than a second. Here is the video. The details and explanation will follow. Make sure to watch the video in full screen mode with 1080HD resolution.
I wrote a general article in the past about how to use the Heaves-Above (HA) site to find when the ISS is passing over you and how you can spot and see the ISS. For this pass I saw that the path is very near the moon and even crossing it, but accuracy is very important. The moon is not that far from Earth even a change of 1km in the observer's location will give a slightly different path which can miss the moon.
The ISS and the moon just after the pass
When I checked the details of this path I first got the following map. The map looks very promising, the ISS is crossing the moon right from my house. Home sweet home. I can arrange all the equipment on my roof in peace and have a nice hot cup of coffee.
Usually when I check in which constellation the ISS passes it is enough but for the moon you should press the map to get a larger resolution which is better. And in that map, we can see that the ISS is NOT crossing the moon., What a shame. But not all is lost.
What I did was to go to the site settings and switch my location to many small towns nearby. With some trial and error I found out that I need to be some 6km south from my house in a small village named Ganot. Not a problem (You can use CalSky site to get email notifications on close passes). Still I was not sure if HA is accurate enough and if the ISS will actually pass over or just very near to the moon.
I used 3 different cameras. Canon SX50 which has a very large zoom (1200mm equivalent) for the closeup, Canon 700d with 18-250 (@250) for the first video and also a Sony DSLR for still photos with long exposure.
The setup of all camera took about 20 minutes and as I was very busy with it I hardly saw the pass itself with my eyes so I was not sure whether it passed over the moon. I took some more photos at the end of the pass. Here is the ISS in the constellation Cetus (The whale)
The ISS in Cetus
The pass was over and I was very excited to see what I got on the videos. I played the videos on the small cameras' screens and was very happy to see a tiny dot on both videos, but even than I couldn't be sure that it is good or that the focus is OK and so I drove back home and immediately went to the computer to look what is in the videos.
The results were edited into the video in the beginning of this post with the OpenShot software.
A pass on the moon is quite rare and if you attempt to photograph one use either video with the highest fps you can (My video is with 30fps 60 and more are better) or use high burst of single photos. Better to use several cameras and try different setups.
Here are some more of my best videos
Sometimes seeing the new moon is not that hard. When the moon is far enough from the sun (30hours old), It stays long in the sky after sunset. Seeing the moon at or even before sunset is still hard, but twenty minutes later it will be very easy to spot it.
So was the new moon of April 30th 2014. I first saw it from Israel at 19:18 just a little before local sunset, and I immediately took photos. It was hard to focus since the moon was very faint. The difference between proper focus and improper are noticeable. Also if you search for the new moon with a binoculars, the focus is critical otherwise the thin crescent will not be seen
Out of focus new moon
New moon in focus
Even in a new moon, you can notice the red moon phenomena, but not as easy as with a full moon. The reasons are the same but since the moon is so thin, it will not be possible to see it in the eye at all some minutes before moonset. However a long exposure with the camera caught that photo at 20:30 just seconds before the moon disappeared behind the buildings (moonset was at 20:36)
ירח חדש בשקיעה
I also photographed many photos to create a time-lapse of 1 hour in just 30 seconds. The interval between photos is about 20seconds. Watch on full screen with HD quality and enjoy.
