The Moon has an elliptical orbit, which means that it is sometimes closer and sometimes farther away from the earth. Today the moon is full and making one of its closer approaches (perigee Moon), at 222,611 miles. At other times it can be as far away as 250,000 miles (an apogee moon), which makes for a difference of about 14% in its apparent size as seen from Earth. It's also about 30% brighter.
Such events are not rare, and in fact there will be five of them in 2014, including each of the summer months. There is nothing mystical about it, but it's okay if some internet excitement causes some people to get up from their computers and actually look at our closest neighbor in space. Like I did...
My shot was taken with a Panasonic Lumix with a 60x optical zoom (stretched out to 120x digital). It's a handheld shot, but I was leaning on my car. I did notice that the disc of the Moon almost filled the field of view, which usually doesn't happen.
1 comment:
you've got a pretty steady hand to do that well.
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