UPDATED 3/22: Holy moly that's a lot of pictures!
Will Femia
Andrew Dallos
Post 'em if you got 'em.
Share your links in the comments or if you don't have a link, upload them here and I'll add them to this post.
Buzzfeed did a nice round-up and of course Flickr is brimming with them.
Having taken a lot of terrible white circle moon photos in the past, I took the time this weekend to research how to shoot the moon. It turns out, the most common mistake is to assume that because you're in the dark, you need a lot of light sensativity. It's not actually a night shot. I saw recommendations of f11 and shutter speeds of 1/125 with ISO 100. Given those settings, it's odd that a tripod is also recommended. My photo (the top one) was taken free-hand.
The need for a tripod may come when you use the right kind of lens. The recommendations I read were for 300mm or more. Sadly, I don't own one of those so the best I could do was a 50mm. So I got some crater detail, but it could never be more than a small dot. Andy shot his on a tripod with a Canon G12 with a pretty impressive result. (Next full moon, super or otherwise, I'm going to rent a telephoto lens for the day and see if I can get something more compelling. Lens rentals are actually remarkably cheap. I can't say enough good things about spending $30 or so to experiment with a lens that costs a couple thousand dollars.)
What I do know about the big telephoto lenses is that if you use a high f stop number, you flatten the depth of field. So if you're including a distant building in your shot, both the building and the moon appear in focus and the moon looks that much closer. I think at that point you'd need the stability of a tripod.
The other real key (that I also failed to do) is to shoot at moonrise. That way you get the moon close to the horizon with some Earth-bound context and you have enough sunset light still hanging around to light the scene and give you some nice sky color.
Ok, lessons taken. I'll meet you back here next month to try again.
Submitted by Robert Jay Russell / UGC
PERIGEE MOON, almost midnight…
...as the moon climbs higher in the sky, at an angle nearly overhead (75-degrees above the horizon), there is much less atmosphere for its light to traverse. Therefore, it is less distorted and its features more resolved. Still, the atmosphere it does cross is like a pot of water stirred and mixed by turbid, roiling, temperature differences.
Submitted by Robert Jay Russell / UGC
PERIGEE MOON, March 19th, 2011…
...dances low on the horizon, peering through dense, very cold air near the ground. It was as distorted and orange as a pumpkin, illuminated by a the setting sun.
Submitted by Ruth Sternglantz / UGC
Supermoon through skeletonic trees...
Submitted by Jack Grover / UGC
Super perigee moon on 19 March 2011 as seen from Slatington, PA - USA
Submitted by Christopher Howard / UGC
Super Moon
Submitted by Jennifer Gilson / UGC
The Super Moon shot 3/21/11 from Liberty State Park, NJ
Submitted by Geri Miller / UGC
Super Moon on a foggy night in Milwaukee, WI
Submitted by Lynne Hammonds / UGC
Super moon taken in the high desert of Calif
Submitted by Suwin Chan / UGC
Full Moon with Clouds, .3 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400
Submitted by Suwin Chan / UGC
Full Moon with Clouds, .3 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400
Submitted by Steve Ramirez / UGC
Moon over Gilbert, AZ
Submitted by Steve Ramirez / UGC
Moon over Gilbert, AZ
Submitted by Cynthia Watkins / UGC
Taken with a Nikon CoolPix 8700
Submitted by Miriam Cintron / UGC
Between the Moon and New York City 3
Submitted by Miriam Cintron / UGC
Between the Moon and New York City 2
Submitted by Darrin Nupuf / UGC
Screen grab from a time-lapse shot of this weekends Super moon!! 3-19-11
Submitted by Laurel Zanardelli
"super" moon in Monroe County, MI
the halo was sooo cool
Submitted by Jim Howland
Supermoon, one night early; the weather was supposed to be cloudy in Georgia on Saturday, so I took my best shot Friday night.
Submitted by m edmund Howse
little zoom
Submitted by m edmund Howse
austin moon
Submitted by Kevin Fox
Moon A-Risin'...Part 2
Not above the treeline yet, I was able to catch this shot. The surround area around the moon was too dark for this shot to be seen.
Submitted by Kevin Fox
Moon A-Risin'
Location: RT81 and Bartel Road, in Brewerton, NY
Submitted by Kevin Fox
The Moon...Exposed!!!
Extended exposure shot taken on Oneida Lake, in Brewerton, NY.
Submitted by Michal Story
d.u.p.e.r
Submitted by Michal Story / UGC
s.u.p.e.r
Submitted by Michal Story
m.o.o.n.
Submitted by Sarah Weston
Super Moon in Hudson Heights
Submitted by Lisa Knappe
Super SCARY moon over DC!
Submitted by Hemant Kulkarni
Taken at about 35 degrees.
Submitted by Michele McCormick / UGC
SuperMoon
Leave a Comment:
Do you have a photo of a"normal" full moon so I can see the difference. When I looked outside Sat. night the moon seemed normal to me. But I don't usually look at the moon, so maybe I don't know what a normal full moon looks like.
Unless you looked when the moon was just on the horizon it looked like any full moon. When it was just rising, though... it really did appear significantly larger.
See a couple of my images at facebook.com/shotonsite
The huge moon was seen best at about 7:30 as it was just coming over the horizon. That's when it looks orange or yellow or gold (depending on where you live) and then the higher in the sky it gets it takes on a white light and looks normal size - just exceptionally bright. So you probably saw it a little later.
I didn't have a clear view to the horizon. The Moon was probably at least 20 degrees of elevation and it looked normal. I was not happy. It was cold and windy out.
BTW - See if you can see Wilma Flintstone in profile on the Moon. If you can, the dark area that would be where her hair is covering her left ear is where Apollo 11 landed. Forget that "Man in the Moon" crap. Ever since someone clued me in to Wilma, she's all I ever see when I look at the Moon.
Yup, it was advised to view it as it rose. I live in a high-desert city in the southwest, and we didn't get to see it until about 8:15 because it had to make its way above our mountain, but it still certainly looked larger than normal. Plus we are almost 4,000 ft. above sea level, which gives us a great view of the stars and moon. I find myself gazing at the stars and moon whenever I am outside at night because the sky is so "big" here.
These belong to my Dad, but they are too cool not to share with everyone.
http://whittlingfog.blogspot.com/2011/03/its-only-popham-moon.html
Bonus points for water reflection!
Those are great!!!
I'll pass all the comments onto my father. :)
I think I'll take the grey. Got several in khaki already.
These were taken on Popham Beach, Maine over looking Georgetown, Maine.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=348585&id=646155700&l=0af3c6acdb
Missed it. So bummed. We had a major storm pass over here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
We had a thick cloud cover here in the West, too. Maddening.
I missed it too, North West was heavy cloud cover, but got the "glow" of it, absolutely eerily beautiful! The Japanese say it is a "RABBIT POUNDING MOCHI" in the moon, does anyone else see the ENERGIZER BUNNY??? I had that as my screen saver about 20 years ago, it drove me nuts! Now I see it in the full moon all the time!
I was at the Bill Maher show in OKC.....I kept waiting for the Super Moon, but Bill failed to produce...........LOL.
i tried but it had already changed back into a mild-mannered-reporter moon.
I would have taken photos but my crayolas are broke.
I'm no photographer and my camera is 7 years old. But whatever. I'll play along:
If you got my photos of the moon...please keep in mind that all I was using was my little Nikon Coolpix, not some fancy apparatus.
The halo around it made it look pretty cool...I had to wait for a bit after moonrise, or I would have taken a pic of my neighbor's house (since me and this neighbor don't get along very well, I decided to avoid the house)
Hopefully, I did everything right so you got them okay. When will we get to see which you picked?
sorry...but HOW do we post them? (I'm technologically challenged)
I just meant share the link. But if you don't have a link, use the form.
I was all ready to go...then it got cloudy.Boo,freakin' hoo!
http://flic.kr/p/9sjJvS Supermoon, south of DC :-)
Nice! I tried to put branches in front of mine but instead of adding depth it just looked like there was stuff in the way.
dang... we had clouds! Went camping to the beach and everything! Oh well had a good time anyway.
We were so excited about it. Wrote it on calendar. Post-its all over the house! Then - too overcast to see anything AT ALL !!! So sad. . . .
I got two good ones
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barstowsteve/5541971206/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barstowsteve/5541499723/
I've seen some really good shots out there, and I love the ones of the moon reflected on the water! I had trees obscuring my view at moonrise but I kind of like how the pictures turned out anyway. Now the skunk who decided to be my assistant, well that wasn't so great!
http://lowtidehighstyle.blogspot.com/2011/03/bad-moon-rising.html
I like the shots through the trees.. they give a better perspective on the size than mine do..
Moon across direct opposition to Uranus late Saturday night as our love-letters arrive
in Libya skies unexpectedly...(that's what I got from here..no film)
SuperMoon on Alki Beach in West Seattle!
http://twitpic.com/4baryv
I got a few good ones by the Statue of Liberty.
Nice shots!
those are absolutely gorgeous!