I love observing the moon as much as any astronomer, but let’s face it, Luna poses a real and regular problem for night sky observing. A daytime moon is a different story – (almost) equal opportunity for lunar landscape browsing without all that bothersome moonlight to diminish the fainter deep sky objects! (You can click the image for a full-size version and click the x to close.)
Now see, isn’t the moon just as lovely in a sunlit sky? I took this image yesterday, when the moon was at 94% illuminated – nearly full. In North America, March’s full moon is traditionally known as Full Crow Moon, Full Crust Moon, Full Sugar Moon, and Full Sap Moon. Knowing that these names originated with the Native American culture, you can probably guess what each one references.
Image Specs: Canon XTi/400D, f/5.6, 1/800 sec., ISO-100, 300mm, two images stacked – 1 w/ foreground focus, 1 w/ background focus.
Coincidentally, as I write this, the Kepler Mission team is announcing on Twitter that the Kepler craft just passed the Moon’s orbit, as it makes it way out of the Earth-Moon system. Go Kepler!
Tags: Astrophotography, Luna, Moon, nightsky
Yay! Very nice. Looking forward to your continued posts.
[...] March 9, 2009 — astrogeek Tavianne Greiner takes her first foray into astro-blogging with her favorite kind of moon. Check out her new blog, A Sky Full of Stars. Posted in Astronomy Blogroll, [...]
This is a wonderful shot. There’s something quite arcane about it.The 300mm lens certainly pulls a lot more detail out of the Moon. I’ve often toyed with getting one – is it an apo lens that you use?
Clear skies,
Ewan
Awesome! I love these kind of pictures. I discovered some time ago that I don’t need to wait for dark to observe the Moon.
I love you picture of the moon with the tree in the foreground. Great shot. Keep up the great job.
RAF