Astrophotographer Cory Schmitz braved a brown bear in order to capture some wonderful images of the full Moon rise on July 22, 2013. This composite shows a series of images of the moonrise, and below is a beautiful timelapse.
This perigee Moon, a.k.a “Super Moon” was the third and final of the big full Moons for 2013. However, as astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson mentioned on Twitter, it is “Okay to call tonight’s Full Moon “super” but only if you would call a 13-inch pizza “super” compared with a 12-inch pizza.”
You can catch more of Cory with Fraser on the Virtual Star Parties on Sunday nights. Below are a couple of more great scenes from Cory’s full Moon experience:
*Sigh* as if all of the other moons of the year will be “small” or “normal”…it’s a smooth transition from the perigee to apogee full moons, with each month being just a bit different in size. The term supermoon does not have much meaning, especially if now we are going to apply it to several full Moons of the year. What many members of the public think is that all of a sudden you have a much larger Supermoon, and hey now we have it three times. The Moon is “super” at perigee once every month, but we don’t (yet) have the SuperFirstQuarterMoon.
All full Moons are pretty! The timelapse pictures are wonderful, you don’t need a hokey excuse to enjoy moonrise and the wonderful optical illusion that makes all full Moons on the horizon look Super.
Wow! Why not just enjoy the pretty pictures?
I do!…but I also work as a planetarium educator. Most people do not understand the Moon’s orbit or its phases, and hype about a non-event just confuses the issue even more. We get a lot of questions about this, and blank looks when you explain that the Moon goes from near to far every month, and about every 14 months perigee comes pretty close to the full Moon. I can’t even start to explain how it’s the photographer’s long lens and distance that makes the Moon ginormous behind the foreground. I like the pretty pictures, been known to take some myself (my neighbors I’m sure think I’m nutty for pointing the camera at the Moon and planets at odd hours). I’ve got perigee/apogee pairs for several years running now. But this whole “Supermoon” thing is relatively new, the term was coined by an astrologer, and encourages the beliefs in connections such as earthquakes and storms…I mean, it’s Super, right? It must be somehow special…..
We could just post the pretty pictures and drop the Supermoon moniker…..
Sorry if I seem a bit curmudgeonly about this, I don’t mean to….but in many ways hype like this just makes the education part of my job more challenging. Enjoy ALL the phases of the Moon, and stars, and planets. On the other hand, in four short years we WILL be making a big deal out of a near perigee New Moon….for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017.