The Official Shoot the Moon Thread

sandwedge wrote in post #18157190
I had great conditions on Tuesday evening for Plane and Moon shots. I sat in my front yard for one hour and caught six crossings with several near misses.

I've said before that the "Holy Grail" shot would be two planes at the same time - with one plane taking off from Atlanta with another flying high overhead. Another possibility came very close to happening. A random plane came in low overhead from the west. I assume he was landing at a nearby regional airport. At the same time, a plane was leaving Atlanta in the opposite direction. Both planes crossed in front of the Moon. These shots were taken 14 seconds apart:

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …42016-049-XL.jpg&lb=1&s=A on Smugmug

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …42016-054-XL.jpg&lb=1&s=A on Smugmug

And a couple more, just for fun:

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …42016-068-XL.jpg&lb=1&s=A on Smugmug

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …42016-079-XL.jpg&lb=1&s=A on Smugmug

Great photos I like the last one best

I took this last night....

1/200 f/9 ISO100 500MM with Kenko 1.4TC = 700MM (cropped and resized)

sandwedge wrote in post #18157192
Very nice!

And Lol that we were posting at the same time.

Yes, you're right! Beautiful night, too!

Great job on all your shots, I like the first one best

The sky is supposed to be overcast tonight but maybe I will be able to get something good tomorrow.

sandwedge wrote in post #18157190
https://photos.smugmug​.com …10142016-079-XL.jpg[/QIMG on Smugmug

This last one appears to have just taken off "from" the Moon. Very well done.

Just cropped...perhaps my best moon image yet even though it was hand-held.

Tonight's Super Moon. This is only the second time I photographed a full moon. I don't like the edges. How do I get the edge sharp?
I did a manual focus with the 70-300L on a 650d. IS was off because it was on a tripod. It is heavily cropped to get it big, though.

Here is another moon shot I did tonight. Earlier in the afternoon I would have said, no moon shot tonight as it was very cloudy. When I did take this, I only had 15-20 minutes between clouds! It is now totally cloudy again with rain called for Sunday.

Since I posted a shot both from this morning and tonight, I put together a comparison for the fun of it.

I do not know the actual name of the area circled, but since these were only taken 8 hours 59 minutes apart I was surprised how much it moved in that amount of time.

Inspeqtor wrote in post #18158003
Since I posted a shot both from this morning and tonight, I put together a comparison for the fun of it.

I do not know the actual name of the area circled, but since these were only taken 8 hours 59 minutes apart I was surprised how much it moved in that amount of time.

Hosted photo: posted by Inspeqtor in
./showthread.php?p=181​58003&i=i46959360
forum: Astronomy & Celestial

I'm not so sure that it moved, but instead, your vantage point changed.

I have a GIF file showing the movement I found years ago on the internet. I want to show it here but have not yet learned how to do it. I did post a thread a couple hours ago asking how to do it, but as of now no answer, but I am sure it will be coming soon.

jwcdds wrote in post #18158031

Inspeqtor wrote in post #18158003
Since I posted a shot both from this morning and tonight, I put together a comparison for the fun of it.

I do not know the actual name of the area circled, but since these were only taken 8 hours 59 minutes apart I was surprised how much it moved in that amount of time.

Hosted photo: posted by Inspeqtor in
./showthread.php?p=181​58003&i=i46959360
forum: Astronomy & Celestial

I'm not so sure that it moved, but instead, your vantage point changed.

I just found what I need to show you, there is a slight rotation of the moon as it moves around the Earth.

Scroll down a bit and you will see the GIF file I mentioned above.

It is called Lunar Libration. Because of this we are able to see a little more than 50% of the moons surface.

Here is a YOUTUBE video of the same...

Inspeqtor wrote in post #18158042
Here is a YOUTUBE video of the same...

Yeah... but notice how the shadow of the moon also wobble? That shouldn't happen since we're all rotating around the sun. So as the sun is considered a "fixed point", therefore, the position of the camera aiming towards the sky at the moon would be responsible for the difference. My guess is that the higher the latitude, the more "wobble" one would see/capture when shooting the moon. But I'm basing that off the assumption that the moon's is closer to the equator (and I'm probably wrong on that).

Is your frame parallel to the ground? Then it is simply your camera rotating relative to the Moon surface, not libration. Imagine you are in a spot where Moon rises exactly at East, goes through the zenith and descends at West. If you take a photo at moonrise and then at moon set, you'll get a 180 degrees rotation of the Moon relative to your frame.

Libration occurs because the Moon's orbit isn't a circle, but an ellipse. The distance between the Earth & Moon changes by about 10% each Lunar month.

In an elliptical orbit, objects pick up speed as they approach the point nearest to the object they are orbiting (generically that point is called a periapsis but since the body is orbiting the Earth it gets the special name "perigee" -- if it were orbiting the Sun it would get a special named called a perihelion) and the object will lose speed as it gets to the farthest point in the orbit (generically called an apoapsis, but given the special name apogee since the body is orbiting the Earth.)

Meanwhile, the Moon is tidally "locked" so that one face of the moon is always toward the Earth. But to pull this off, the moon "rotates" exactly once as the moon orbits the Earth exactly once. (one revolution per one orbit). Since the orbital velocity changes... the rotational speed would also need to change in order for viewers on Earth to see *precisely* the same face of the moon. Since changing a rotational speed would be very difficult (it would require a great deal of energy since the moon has a lot of mass), the rotational speed of the Moon basically does _not_ change even though it's orbital speed _does_ change.

This creates the effect called libration that you're seeing... it allows us to sneak a peak just behind the Moon's horizon as the moon appears to (from our point of view) oscillate from side-to-side as it orbits.