Supermoon

Coincidence with Earthquake at Japan and subsequent tsunami made the Hindu festival Holi’s moon on 19th March a Super Moon. With sensation seeking media on the toes for disaster of magnitude larger than the devastation at Japan, I headed to the highest place in my home town to capture this Super Moon.

When I reached my place to photograph moon, sun was just setting. As soon as I arranged my tripod and fitted the Canon EOS 5D with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM Lens, I could see faint traces of moon behind the 2 large monolithic stone we have at my hometown called Konaje Kallu. Haze was quite a lot and I was able to get a faint picture of the moon. Then I added 1.4x extender on the lens. This gave me some more reach as the moon started raising up in the eastern sky.

Raising Supermoon Over Konaje Kallu

So how different was this Super Moon. I couldn’t make out that it was larger than any other full moon. In fact I had seen moons which were larger than these. Until almost 20° up into the horizon I was not able to define moon as there was strong haze as well as smoke. So only after half an hour I could get a good shot of the moon.

The detailed photo of moon above was taken by combining 2x with 1.4x (even though the exif shows only info about 2x). When you combine 2 extenders you must stack the 2X behind the lens, then the 1.4X. When you combine two extenders the effective magnification will be 2.8x, so my 300mm was now effective as 840mm. I could have used my EOS 7D which would have added another 1.6x crop factor for this equation, but the image quality of  5D mark II is far greater as it is full frame camera as compared to cropped sensor of EOS 7D. 5D mark II also fared better with the stacked tele-converters.

Metering moon is quite tricky. As it is a bright object in a dark sky. Spot metering will be your friend in shooting the moon. If your camera has it, use it while metering off the moon. Experiment with bracketing to bring out other objects in the frame. It’s better to have the foreground a little dark than the moon be completely blown out with no detail.

To photograph just the moon by itself, without any objects in the foreground, you will need a long telephoto lens like explained above to magnify the moon and try to fill as much of the frame as possible. Even with a good telephoto lens setup though, you will most likely be cropping the final image, simply because only a telescope would be able to provide enough magnification to fill the entire frame. With your telephoto lens mounted in your camera, secure it on a tripod and point at the moon. Make sure that your tripod is good and stable enough to accommodate and hold your lens and your camera. Set your camera mode to full Manual Mode. Set your base ISO you have in your camera, in my case it is ISO 100. Make sure Auto ISO is turned Off. Set your aperture to f/11. Set your shutter speed to 1/125 on cameras with base ISO 100, and to 1/250 on Nikon DSLRs with base ISO 200. Set your lens to manual focus and set your focus to infinity. Be careful while setting the focus to infinity, as some lenses allow focusing beyond infinity.

Hazy Supermoon with 300mm + 1.4x

On my 5D mark II I used live view with magnification to accurately acquire focus on moon surface. I have used it many times for my moon photography and it works great! If you do not have such a feature in your camera, then try setting your lens to the center of the infinity sign, then take a picture and see if it came out sharp by zooming in the rear LCD of the camera. Bracketing few shots would be nice so that you can get an accurately exposed moon.

It’s too bad that people are getting so silly about this super moon business. It really isn’t that super at all. In fact it is only little closer than it normally gets in it’s elliptical orbit around the earth. If you want to wonder about something think of the effect the much larger earth will have on the tectonics of the moon since it is also the same distance closer to the moon.

The mean distance to the moon, 384401 km, is the semi-major axis of its oval elliptical orbit. The closest moon (perigee) was 356375 km on 4th January 1912; the most distant moon (apogee) will be 406720 km on 3rd February 2125. The mean distance is not equidistant between the minimum and maximum because the Sun’s gravity perturbs the orbit away from a true ellipse. Although the absolute extremes are separated by many years, almost every year has a perigee and apogee close enough to the absolute limits to be indistinguishable at this scale. On March 19th Moon came 356577 km close to earth. So in effect Moon was closer by 27824 km from its mean distance which is insignificant. That is why we did not have any catastrophe as predicted by the popular media. If you suspect March 11th earthquake happened because of this, you are wrong as on that day moon was far off from this perigee.

Even the scientific world seems to have been influenced by this mass hysteria. NASA science news podcast wrongly mentioned last perigee was in 1983. They all forgot that perigee and apogee happen almost every month. Almost every year there is one full moon which is near perigee. Check this Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator.

Supermoon with 300mm + 2.0x + 1.4x

The frequently-stated assertion that the Moon always keeps the same face toward the Earth is also not really correct. The combination of the eccentricity and inclination of the Moon’s orbit causes the Moon, as seen from the Earth, to nod up and down and left and right. These apparent motions, the lunar librations, allow us to observe, over a period of time, more than 59% of the Moon’s surface from the Earth, albeit with the terrain in the libration zones near the edge of the visible disc, only very obliquely. By taking photos of moon during perigee and apogee we can make out these lunar librations.

Small Indian Kites with Grasshopper

That Sunday evening I was strolling with my Canon EOS 5D mark II fitted with Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM & Canon EF 1.4x II Extender. Focusing with 5D Mark II was not as efficient as 7D. It used to hunt before getting proper focus. I saw small bush fire nearby. People here are famous for lighting fire to any thing they see that is dry. We tend to burn dry leaves, plastic and all substances which are not suitable for recycling under the impression that it is the best method of disposal. Agni, god of fire in Hindu Mythology is supposed to digest anything you offer. Due to this we not only destroy precious dry leaves which would have decayed and enriched our top soil, but also pollute our atmosphere with harmful by-products of plastic like dioxin.

Small Indian Kite Landing

My birding ground is a large vacant government land at Bondel, Mangalore. Because of frequent fire it is invaded by species of grass called fountain grass (Pennisetum species). This is a large variety of grass which grows on clumps. Even though this grass takes advantage of fire they are a carbon fixing perennial bunch grass that is native to open, scrubby habitats in East Africa, tropical Africa, Middle East and SW Asia. It has been introduced to many parts of the world as an ornamental plant. It is drought-tolerant, grows fast, reaches 1 m (3.3 ft) in height, and has many purple, plumose flower spikes. They are favorites of several small birds like Munias which feed on them.

Small Indian Kite Landing

The bush fire I saw was a very low intensity and got extinguished very fast. It nevertheless drove all the insects like Grass Hoppers away from the patch which was getting burnt. This caught attention of the hovering kites which landed there to grab them. I got few Small Indian Kite or Pariah Kites (Milvus migrans govinda) which are the commonest urban kites we see around here. Small Indian Kites are opportunistic hunters and are more likely to scavenge. They spend a lot of time soaring and gliding in thermals in search of food. Their angled wing and distinctive forked tail make them easy to identify. This kite is widely distributed through the temperate and tropical parts of Eurasia and parts of Australasia, with the temperate region populations tending to be migratory. Several subspecies are recognized and formerly with their own English names. The European populations are small, but the South Asian population is very large.

Kingfisher Airline Flight

They grabbed few insects and flew away squabbling among themselves as soon as the fire was extinguished. When I looked at the sky I spotted a man made Kingfisher. What I am referring is Kingfisher airlines flight VT-KAH. This Aerospatiale/Alenia 72-500 plane was passing just overhead. I had opportunity to compose myself and take the belly shot of the aircraft in just the nick of time. I was using Canon EF 2X II Extender on Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM mounted on my Canon EOS 5D mark II.

As the flight passed I could see a bright waxing gibbous moon on the eastern sky. I also saw few Brahminy Kites (Haliastur indus) soaring in front of the moon. Light was perfect as it was emanating from the setting sun in the west. I wanted to capture a moon with kite photo. Patiently waiting for the right moment was difficult as the sun was dipping down in the western sky. Finally after several close shots of Brahminy Kites without moon in the background, I was able to capture one which came close to my imagination how a bird soaring high in the sky should be presented in from of the majestic Moon.

Brahminy Kite Side View

Brahminy Kite

Unfortunately this shot I got the bird in sharp focus but moon was out of focus despite using f/11 to gain depth of field. If I had calculated and used Hyper focal distance and tried I think I could have got both bird as well as moon in sharp focus. That is an experiment I have to try with next such moon day.

Moon and Brahminy Kite

Here is a composite which included a sharp picture of kite and sharp picture of moon merged in Photoshop as I envisioned I would capture. The technique is simple, I exported both the individual images as layers in Photoshop then masked the bird and placed it on top of the moon photo layer. This is the final result in the form how I really wanted the photograph.

Moon and Brahminy Kite Composite

Honeymoon with Venus

It was late evening of 16th May. Whole of India was still busy buying tons of gold in the name of Akshaya Tritiya madness. I got SMS from close friend of mine, A.P. Subramanya asking me to capture Moon and Venus on the Northwest sky immediately. I looked at the crescent moon. He was grinning brightly just above the bright Venus. Even though I did not get tripod that day, I used my car as support and used my newly acquired Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens with Canon EF 2X II Extender on my Canon EOS 5D mark II thus making it a 600 MM lens which is good for Astro-photography.

Earlier in the day moon had passed directly in front of and occult (eclipse) the planet venus. Most locations in the occultation’s ground path was in full daylight, but from some locations — in particular from Sumatra to the Philippines — the occultation occurred after sunset. When the moon will completely hide Venus for a short while. Just before the occultation, Venus will appear so close to the Moon that it would well be mistaken as being inside the crescent. It may well have been a glorious sight such as this that inspired the crescent moon and star symbol that has come to represent the faith of Islam. But don’t expect to see the star (Venus at least in this case) really inside the crescent, which is impossible. Being farther from Earth than the Moon (currently more than 500 times farther), it is not possible for Venus to shine through the solid body of the moon.

The moon passes somewhere near Venus about once a month, but conditions for observing aren’t always favorable. However, what you haven’t ever seen is a mention of the quarter moon, or gibbous moon, or full moon passing near Venus. Why is it that only the crescent moon ever passes Venus?

That’s because Venus is inferior. No, I don’t mean that it is less valuable in any way. Used in this context, inferior means lower than. Venus is lower than the Earth relative to the sun. In other words, Venus is closer to the sun. Because of this, Venus never appears very far away from the sun in Earth’s sky. It oscillates back and forth from one side of the sun to the other, much like a race car moving from the left side to the right side of a circular track as we watch it from the stands. Thus, Venus sometimes appears in the evening twilight, and sometimes in the dawn twilight. The point is that it is never far from the sun. The farthest it can get from the sun (called an elongation) is slightly more than 47 degrees. So when the moon appears to pass Venus, it does so at about the same elongation from the sun. Since 47 and fewer degrees correspond to a crescent phase, only the crescent moon can appear to pass near Venus in the sky. The quarter moon is 90 degrees from the sun, and the full moon is 180 degrees, so you will never see those phases near Venus.

Mercury is an inferior planet as well, but its maximum elongation is only 28 degrees, so only a very thin crescent moon can ever appear near Mercury. On the other hand, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are farther from the sun than Earth, making them superior. From time to time they can appear at any angle from the sun, and the quarter or full moon phases can pass near them (sometimes even occulting them).