Sturgeon Super Moon

Moonrise collage August 12, 2022

 I never tire of watching the moon rise but photographs of a full moon rise tend to look the same. My pictures do not show that the moon rises toward the northeast in the winter and the southeast in the summer months. Perspective and context are often lacking when looking at a bright orb in a dark sky. Many photographers photoshop two pictures together;- one with the foreground in focus and one with a large background moon in focus to give perspective. 

I made a collage of three pictures of the rising Sturgeon super moon with each picture taken a few minutes apart. The first shows the bottom of the moon on the horizon and in the third shot,  the moon was high enough that the bright orange colour from lower atmosphere contaminants was fading. The moon always looks huge on the horizon and the changing perspective makes it appear smaller as it rises in the sky.

A large crane sits at a nearby construction site where an apartment tower is being built. The rising moon backlit a portion of the crane while it was above the tree tops. These pictures were taken on August 12, 2022, about 24 hours after the official full moon. But the waning moon was still 98.9% full and other than rising about half an hour later, it looked the same as the moon the night before.

In this age of busy days, rapid change, and a crazy news cycle, the moon marks nature's time with peaceful predictability. As a bonus, we noticed some meteors from the August Perseids shower, Saturn with its rings and a flying bat in the night sky. I would like to visit a place with minimal light pollution but there are no guarantees that the sky would be cloudless if I planned a trip. My moon rise outings are always spontaneous, last-minute excursions if the night is clear. I hate to admit it, but I am coveting a new iPhone just for the night sky photography options their newest cameras have. But I have no need for a new "phone" and my real memory can store the images I see when I look at the night sky.