How is this possible?

Tonight was a crystal clear night, noticed while i smoked a quick one that the moon was very bright in the sky. Decided to get out the tripod,camera and sigma 70-200 w/2x attached. Set everything up, played with the settings till i found one that i liked and shot away. I made sure the lens was at 200mm to get a good tight close up.

When i uploaded the pics i was a lil disappointed. The halfmoon tonight seemed like it could've been alot closes with the 2x attached to the 70-200.
Moon taken tonight w/2x

Taken 3/27 handheld with no 2x

No i pretty much no nothing about astronomy, but does the moon get closes and farther away during its trips around earth? If so then this would explain why one is closes then the other. How can i find out when the moon is the closest it gets to earth?

Oh and both pics are 100%crops.

Yes the moon's orbit isn't a perfect sphere but I don't think it'll ever appear closer/farther from the same location on Earth. I could be mistaken though.

I might be wrong, but the moon is further away at night. The second shot seems to be shot during the day, so the moon is closer to earth then. The moon's orbit isn't perfectly circular so that's why it happens.

Actually (well, I think), the moon looks larger when it's close to the horizon because the earth's atmosphere has a slight magnifying effect. That's why harvest moons appear to be a lot larger than normal (red because there's lots of dust in the air, and because the moon is low on the horizon, the light from it is passing though a lot more air than it would be higher in the sky).

Did that make any kind of sense? I know what I mean anyway!

The Moon does vary in its distance to the earth at various times. But not enough to make it bigger or smaller to us. The reason it looks bigger closer to the horizion is an optical illusion. Hold a quarter at arms length when the moon is high in the sky (appears smaller) it will cover the Moon, now do it again when its on the horizion (appears bigger) it will again cover the moon. Did the quarter get bigger? I don't think so.

CaseLogic wrote in post #3273481
Yes the moon's orbit isn't a perfect sphere but I don't think it'll ever appear closer/farther from the same location on Earth.

It does get a little closer.

pagnamenta wrote in post #3273533
I might be wrong, but the moon is further away at night. The second shot seems to be shot during the day, so the moon is closer to earth then. The moon's orbit isn't perfectly circular so that's why it happens.

This is rubbish.

Pete wrote in post #3273662
Actually (well, I think), the moon looks larger when it's close to the horizon because the earth's atmosphere has a slight magnifying effect.

No. It's an optical illusion.

Grizz wrote in post #3273746
The Moon does vary in its distance to the earth at various times. But not enough to make it bigger or smaller to us. The reason it looks bigger closer to the horizion is an optical illusion.

Mostly correct.

The change in the appearance of the moon during a month is illustrated very well by the amazing animation on the Wikipedia page about libration. You can see that, in addition to 'wobbling' on its axis, the moon does approach and recede a little because its orbit is not perfectly circular. The extreme change is around 10%, and therefore it looks up to 10% bigger at some times than at others. That's enough to be noticeable in a camera or telescope, but probably not to the untrained naked eye.

If you're using a 350D/XT, the moon should take up roughly 1/8th of the short side of the frame with a 200mm lens and about 1/4 of the short side of the frame with a 400mm lens. Your 200mm shot is compatible with this but the 400mm shot isn't.

So, how is this possible? Simple. The shot you took recently is not a 100% crop.

Ah, the good old Moon Illusion!

Interestingly enough modern science still hasn't solved this mystery completely, although it's definitely not atmospheric lensing that Pete refers to. It's also not quite as simple as the optical illusion that Grizz refers to.

For more info on this interesting effect, see this link

StewartR wrote in post #3273824
It does get a little closer.This is rubbish.No. It's an optical illusion.Mostly correct.

The change in the appearance of the moon during a month is illustrated very well by the amazing animation on the Wikipedia page about libration. You can see that, in addition to 'wobbling' on its axis, the moon does approach and recede a little because its orbit is not perfectly circular. The extreme change is around 10%, and therefore it looks up to 10% bigger at some times than at others. That's enough to be noticeable in a camera or telescope, but probably not to the untrained naked eye.

If you're using a 350D/XT, the moon should take up roughly 1/8th of the short side of the frame with a 200mm lens and about 1/4 of the short side of the frame with a 400mm lens. Your 400mm shot is compatible with this but the 200mm handheld shot isn't.

So, how is this possible? Simple. The shot you took 2 months ago has been cropped. We're not looking at the full frame!

Bot shots are 100% crops of hte original shot. The second shot, the handheld one, was taken around 330pm i think.

[POST deleted because it didn't make any sense.]

100% view is 100% view no matter what crops you did to the frame..compare the size of the moon only.. the size and ratio of the frame dont matter, if both are infact 100% views

2005GLI,

Are you sure both are 100%? The day shot looks less sharp than the night shot, almost as if it has been cropped greater than 100% (like 120% or so). Of course this could be due to conditions when the shot was taken.

Do you have the original raw files for both?

Perhaps you've uncovered a new phenomenon

Sorry, my mistake, I thought you meant uncropped (100% of the frame) rather than 100% crops.

Anyway, in the first picture (May 27th, black sky, 400mm lens) the diameter of the moon is about 200 pixels. In the second picture (March 27th, blue sky, 200mm lens) the diameter of the moon is about 280 pixels, which is 40% bigger. I really do not see how that is possible if they really are both 100% crops taken with the lenses that are claimed.

It would help if you could show the original (uncropped) frames.

This seemed like a good place to ask my question. I'll be using a Canon 5D with a 70-200mm f2.8L IS with a Canon 2X Tel-con to try the next full moon. Basic setting would help alot. Haven't had much luck so far in catching the moon. Everything over exposed so far. Any help???
Regards,
Pete

crawfish wrote in post #3279445
Everything over exposed so far. Any help???

Pete, it helps to realize that the moon is illuminated by the same sun as the one that illuminates the Earth (and at roughly the same distance from the sun as the Earth). Thus, a proper exposure for the moon's surface would use the same settings as a bright sunny outdoor scene on Earth.

The reason you are getting over-exposure when using the camera in an automated exposure mode is that there is so much black around the moon that fools the meter.

Try taking a reading on a sunny day and then putting the settings into "M" mode for a moon photo. A starting point, using the "Sunny 16" rule as a reference would be: ISO 100, 1/100 shutter speed, and f/16.

Were you using the same camera between shots? Crop factor potential?