Proposed flight plan for the Chandrayaan-2 mission. Credit: ISRO

Golden and reddish Moon 24 August 2010

Local: Caxias do Sul / Brazil

Camera: Panasonic DMC-ZS1 / Reddish Moon: ISO 800, 1/8 sec, stack 03 pictures / Golden Moon: ISO 800, 1/4 sec, stack 05 pictures. Scenary: composition 02 pictures. Enhancement Photoshop Cs$.

Reason to colour Moon: The poor atmosphere conditions due to ashes from fires in middle South America carryed by winds to south of Brazil.

I’ve been posting a lot of extreme close-ups of the moon, but sometimes you can learn something by taking a step back.

For example, I imagine if I went out in the street and asked people what shape the Moon’s orbit was, they’d say it was a circle (or, given recent poll results, they’d say it was Muslim). In fact, however, the Moon’s orbit is decidedly elliptical. When it’s closest to Earth — the point called perigee — it’s roughly 360,000 kilometers (223,000 miles) away*, and when it’s at it’s farthest point — apogee — it’s at a distance of about 405,000 km (251,000 miles).

August Moon

by Kevin Abeln

I took this about 21:00  on 8/21/2010 at Bear Butte Lake, Bear Butte State Park, SD.  At the Centenial Trail Head Horse Camp. I  used a Kodak point & shoot C613 digital camera. Mounted on an Orion Steady-Pix Deluxe camera mount, on my Orion 150mm Mak-Cass, 25mm wide angle lens. I took the picture with the cameras 2sec self timer.