Anticipating Sun and Moon Alignments

Originally posted in 2010, I occasionally bump this forward in my blog to tell people that they can plan to take an amazing sunrise moonset or sunset moonrise shot on an upcoming date.  As I update this on September 17, 3013, here on the California/Nevada border the moon will rise at 5:50 pm tonight and be about 12 degrees up in the eastern sky at 7 pm sunset.  Somewhere with something tall to place the moon next to should work well, like Yosemite Valley.

Tomorrow the moon will rise around 6:25 then be about 5.8 degrees up in the sky at sunset (close to 7 pm).  That will work best somewhere with a relatively low horizon.  These times will vary by your specific location on the globe, and the application described below can correct the times for your position.

I used to line up moon shots the old-fashioned way... looking up the full moon rise, arriving and seeing where the moon was emerging, predicting where it was going, and changing my position several times to try to be in just the right place at just the right time.

Fortunately there's an application that takes a lot of the guesswork out of lining up the sun and moon with natural or man-made objects to take stunning photos. The application The Photographer's Ephemeris allows you to plan a shooting location for a fairly exact alignment with particular landmarks: Free Download for PC or Mac

It runs on Google Earth satellite photos, so you can easily see your planned shooting position, it shows you the azimuth angle (compass direction) of the sun and moon at any give time from there, and you can read the elevation angle as well.  If the lineup isn't just right as the sun or moon is coming over the horizon, you can adjust your shooting position (at various times and stages in the sun or moon rise) to get just the alignment you want.

View the tutorials for some examples of the capabilities of, and applications for, this program.
Tutorials: stephentrainor.com/tools#tutorials  You'll be surprised at just how easy and intuitive it is.

Below are my results from researching on TPE a much more subtle event: anticipating and planning for the position of a crescent moon. I identified two positions a couple of blocks apart for two different times, then adjusted my position a few yards onsite to place the moon beside or behind the same courthouse, while avoiding trees or power lines.

So fire up TPE and go give this a try in your area on the next full moon rise (and set), or whenever!  Let me know how it goes.

 Remember to pick a target reasonably far away (say 1/2 mile to several miles) to put the moon alongside, so you can use a long zoom lens and capture the moon appearing really large beside it.

Full Moon Rise at Mono Lake in January

When I arrived to shoot the full moon rise over Mono Lake in January, there were 4-5 carloads of photographers capturing the sunset, but none of them were there for the moon rise.  Having planned the shot in advance using +The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE), I told them to stick around for another 10 minutes. 
It was fun hanging out with +Amy Heiden +Tran Mai and +Lori Hibbett in the Mono Basin for the day.  There was fog on the lake all the way through 3 pm, but fortunately it cleared just in time for the moon rise.  When we arrived at the Old Marina site +Blair Pountney joined us.  He had seen my notes on the coming moon rise last week and drove up from Bishop.  Then we ran into +Travis Theune and +Schmoo Theune of Smugmug, so we had a fun little group of photographers gathered, from various parts of the state!

I captured about 400 images, enough for this time-lapse video.  I had problems with a light tripod in the intermittent gusty wind which developed, so the result is pretty funny.  After the moon rise, Amy, Tran, Lori and I went on to shoot into the night by the light of the full moon, so check their streams in the coming days for night snowy landscape shots. I decided that meeting Travis and Schmoo was a great reminder to update my Mono Lake gallery on +SmugMug (I'm not as diligent about that as I should be), so if you're curious to see more of my work from Mono Lake, here's the link to that gallery, where you can see a larger copy of this image.

Mono Lake moon rise January 2013.  See a larger copy (or buy prints) on SmugMug.

If you'd like to plan your own sunset full moon rise shots, here's my blog post on planning to shoot sunset moon rise events using TPE:

Put Sunset Full Moon Rise Dates on your Calendar
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2010/12/09/put-sunset-full-moon-rise-dates-on-your-2011-calendar/

Here's one of my blog posts on creating time-lapse videos:

Create a Timelapse Video on Your Digital Camera
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2011/08/01/create-a-timelapse-video-on-your-digital-camera/

Thanks to astronomer +Philip Plait for blogging about my moon rise coverage on his +Bad Astronomy blog on +Slate magazine.  He provides a nice diagram explaining this "Belt of Venus" pink over blue light that you get at Mono lake after sunset: Moon Rise over an Arsenic Lake.

In the past he featured the sunset thunderstorm I caught in early 2012, as well as my lunar eclipse timelapse video on his Bad Astronomy blog on +Discover Magazine.

He also featured the Perseid meteor shower in 2008 shot in California's Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest:
The Perseids, Writ Large
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/08/25/perseids-writ-large/

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Astronomical Events Coming in March 2012

Mono Lake Moonrise (Re-edit), originally uploaded by Jeffrey Sullivan.

To get the best possible results with my astrophotography, I try to plan ahead to shoot as many astronomical events as I can. Here are some of the opportunities you'll have in the next month:

March 3/4: Mars at Opposition.  Mars will be as close as it gets to the earth, and will rise in the evening as the sun sets.
March 5: Mercury may be visible shortly after the sun sets through March 12, but on March 5 it reaches it maximum distance from the sun.
March 7: The nearly-full moon will rise just before sunset. Mars will rise right behind the moon in the evening sky.
March 8: Full moon.
March 9: The nearly-full moon will set just after sunrise.
March 10 - 20: Venus and Jupiter Conjunction
March 12: Arguably the best day of the Venus - Jupiter conjunction, as Jupiter will be just above Venus.
March 21: Thin crescent moon rises shortly before sunrise.
March 22: New Moon. March 21-24 will be good nights for star trail photography!
March 24: Thin crescent moon sets shortly before sunset.
March 24-25: Conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon.

I'll be out shooting with 25-30 of my photographer friends in Anza Borrego State Park and Death Valley National Park in the March 2-10 timeframe, and soon I'll be announcing photowalks for April, May and June.  The best place to catch my announcements will be on Google+:
http://www.Gplus.to/JeffSullivan

Two Medicine

Two Medicine, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

This was somewhat of a "checklist stop" to see what this place was like on my way out of Galcier as i moved towards Yellowstone, but it's definitely a place that I'll have to revisit.

The sun was already setting as I left the East Entrance of Glacier National Park at St. Mary, but a few short miles downt he road I caught the full moon rising over some dead trees. I arrived in two Medicine witht he mountians slightly backlit, with the full moon's light on their southeastern faces.