While I was able to salvage tonight with a decent photo, tonight’s haze and cloud deck made tonight’s Supermoon, a super bust. Here is tonight’s, at the top, and then other Supermoons from Boston’s past, with the date embedded in the photo.
May 6, 2012
May 6, 2012
Photo sequence is of Air France FL 333, a Boeing 747 en route from Boston to Paris. Photos shot with a Canon 800mm F5.6 lens, with a Canon 1DX camera. 1/500th of a second at F8 at 1000asa (ISO). Camera’s mirror was in the lock-up position and camera was on a tripod. As seen from Winthrop,MA., at 9:08pm tonight as the jet climbed out of 4000 feet “through” the full Supermoon.
I did not go out searching for an airplane flying “through” tonight’s Supermoon, though an airplane found me. I, along with many other Winthrop Beach moon-watchers, were disappointed that it took nearly a half hour after moonrise for the moon to show itself. A deck of clouds and haze blocked the lunar delight until it was quite high in the sky. It was still glowing red, even at that steep height. I was chatting with a nice couple from Arlington when I saw a speck moving from left to right about to “hit” the moon. It was tiny and I could barely make it out. I enlarged it on the back of my camera to see the 5 photo sequence. The moon was still hazy and soft, so the photo is not as sharp as I would have wished for. I was using a Canon 800mm.
The moon rose tonight at 8:53pm. This was photographed at 9:17pm as a departing jet from Logan took off from runway 15 (its back to Eastie and its front pointing toward Hull) I was in a parking garage in Medford’s Wellington Circle. The moon was very yellow and reddish. My camera was set at 2500 asa/iso, and my settings were 1/160th of a second at F8. I used an 800mm lens with a 1.4x extender, making the lens a whopping 1120mm. I used a Canon EOS 1D Mark 111. The photo at the bottom was a “just missed” a few minutes before the “hit.” The problems I encountered led to a soft photo, that is, not as sharp as one would hope. When the moon is so “young” in its infancy, there is a lot of moisture and earth pollution in between it and my lens. Also, the jet is moving very fast and I am only at 1/160th of a second due to the limitations of such a large lens. All in all I was happy to have watched this.
There it is. Captured at 10:25pm, just a few short minutes ago. No photoshop, no trickery. Persistent low clouds over Boston, passing in front of the moon at a high rate of speed, somehow produced this photo. Stop the damn presses 🙂
