Chasing the Supermoon
This week we had the closest supermoon since 1948 so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go out and practice photographing with my new-old DSLR camera. Quick bit of science trivia: the supermoon phenomenon, or, more accurately, the perigee-syzygy, is when the moon is full or new at the same time that its orbit is as close to the Earth as possible. When the moon is as close to the Earth as possible in its orbit, that is called the perigee - the opposite, being as far away as possible, is the apogee (a for "away"). This coincidence can occur once every 14 months (approximately - it happens more often if you count when the moon is new or full and reaches the perigee of its orbit relative to the Earth). November 14th 2016 was special because the moon was the brightest it has been since 1948, and the next time it is this bright will be in 2034. Supermoons can be 30% brighter than regular full moons. Consider the diagram below (source: http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/closest-supermoon-since-1948-nov-13-14-2016):
Position A and C are where a supermoon can occur. In A, when the moon is at its apogee, it is a supermoon because the sun is directly in line with the moon so the sun's light is maximally illuminating the moon (i.e. the light is hitting the moon full frontal, not at an angle, so you can see the most surface area of the moon). In C, when the moon is at its perigee, you can also get a supermoon because the same lighting conditions existing. On November 14th the moon was at its perigee in position C.
So that's the supermoon. I went after it with an old Canon DSLR that my sister had taught me to use (thanks!). I didn't realize until I was sifting through my photos that its actually very difficult to shoot in the dark. Some considerations:
I played with just the shutter speed (I set the ISO setting to auto because I'm a noob and didn't want to play with 2 things at once). I tried everything from 1 second to 6 seconds.
It's really hard to get a good image without a tripod. When your shutter speed is so slow, the slightest shake throws the whole picture off. That's why after an hour of shooting I only got like, 5 good pictures...
...and most of those are out of focus because it is also hard to see if your image is in focus or not when it's dark outside. Also the autofocus doesn't work when you want to focus on the moon.
I have a lot to learn when it comes to DSLR, but now at least I have some idea of what shutter speed can do for you at night!
