Supermoon. Lunar Eclipse. Blood Moon. Oh My!

September 28, 2015 was a lunar special night. It was a Supermoon when the moon was at its closest position to the earth on the moon's elliptical path.

This close position makes the moon appear larger.  At moonrise and moonset, when the moon appears larger anyway, the supermoon looks even bigger. This year the moon appeared 14% larger. My view was noticeably larger but I might not have noticed if I was not aware of this special evening. 

Add to this already interesting event a Lunar Eclipse. The sun, earth and moon were aligned so that the earth's shadow blocked all sunlight from falling on the moon. This shadow kept the moon in darkness for more than an hour.

Broad Key is a fairly good viewing spot. The horizon from the north to northwest suffers from a lot of light pollution. Miami and Turkey Point Power simply refuse to turn off their lights at night. But from the northeast to the southwest the sky is quite dark at night.  

The roof of the Big House is almost the highest thing on the island.  There are a few tree tops that are higher. However, they are in the right place to block much of the northwest horizon light pollution. So the view from the rooftop is good both day and night.

Sooo....    You would think everything was in order for a great view of the supermoon and lunar eclipse. I charged all my camera batteries. Pre-programmed my intervalometer on my camera. Tripods from 6 inch to 6 feet were placed by the door. All was ready.

But for the weather.  We experienced a typical south Florida summer day.  Partly cloudy.  I watched and watched the sky all day and into the evening.  Is it clearing at all?  Is that a hole in the clouds over there? Please, oh, please.......

The moon rose into the clouds. It played peek-a-boo teasing me for the whole night. Mosquitoes be damned; I am going to get some pictures!  I spent several hours on the roof shooting pictures as I could.

As a photographer, I all but refuse to show pictures that are not good quality at least technically. A fuzzy-graph?  You will not see it. Well not until now. I was on the roof (which flexes slightly). This meant that my tripod did not have a solid base. The tripod was extended to about five feet.  I was set up in a strong breeze. A telephoto lens was needed and used in maximum zoom (~300mm). Add to these issues an exposure of about 6 seconds at f5.6. I know, I know:  Excuses. Excuses. But these were slightly trying conditions. Also of interesting note; the images I got I did not see.  The camera captured images that I could not see. I felt that I was doing well whether the shots were presentation grade or not.

There is another side to the supermoon. The tides. Since the tides are caused by the moon, the closer moon means higher tides. The supermoon therefore causes very high tides. Fortunately, Broad Key is used to these tides so the only issue is the tidal flotsam is pushed farther up the lawn and deeper into the mangroves. The paths and lower places on the island get water covered when normally they are dry.

Being on the island means life closer to nature. Closer to the heat. Closer to the cycles of life, water and moon. While this closeness can be a wonderful thing, sometimes is also wears on you.  Ah!  Another post?

cz, 1330 9/30/15