Day 311: Planets and moons

Today passed without me even thinking about getting outside for a photo, and it was with some trepidation that I set off home wondering what I could get tonight. Last night, the slender crescent moon was close to Venus in the sky, making for a beautiful sight. I looked up to see where they were, not believing that I'd see them due to the cloud cover. Lo and behold, through the clouds, Venus and the Moon were shining brightly, along with Jupiter a little higher in the sky. Now for the next challenge - holding a small camera steady enough to get a decent picture. Zooming in for a detail shot was a no-go, but at full wide angle, I could easily get all three in the picture. My exposure time was still quite long at half a second, but I leaned my elbows on the bike lockers, took a deep breath and took a handful of shots. And as has been the case so many times before, one of them worked well enough to post.

Jupiter, the Moon and Venus

Day 263: Lunar eclipse

My luck with lunar eclipses in Vancouver has been quite good, and I've managed to get photos of two previous eclipses. Despite the early start, I couldn't resist getting up for another photo, especially after having photographed the moonrise a few hours earlier. I got everything ready the night before and set the alarm for 5:30 am. I hauled myself out about 5:45 am and saw that it was still clear, the moon now only a thin crescent. I got dressed and set up the tripod and camera on the balcony by a little before 6 am, only to see that clouds had drifted in over the last 15 minutes. I took as many pictures as I could, shivering away on our frost-covered balcony, and within another 10 minutes there was no moon to be seen at all, with barely 20 minutes to go until totality. I was lucky to get what I did, and glad that I got up to see it. I could say that there's always next year but that's not true: the next total lunar eclipse isn't until 2014!

Lunar eclipse

Day 262: Full(ish) moon rising

Tomorrow morning is the full moon closest to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. That's still nearly two weeks away, and the next new moon will fall just after it. Even more exciting is that there will be a total lunar eclipse. What could be a cooler photo to get today than the nearly-full moon rising over the city? A couple of years ago I'd sized up a full-moon-rise shot over Mt Seymour, capturing it nicely from Trimble Park. This time I thought I would try and have my cake and eat by watching the moon rise over the city and Mt Seymour. Well, I misjudged it and the moon rose over the city well enough, but missed the summit of Mt Seymour by some way. I was clearly too far east, and I should have stayed up near UBC. Oh well - there's always next year :-)

City moonrise

Day 237: Moonday

Another Monday, and a fine sunny one at that. The standing joke in Vancouver is "What do you call a sunny day after two days of rain?" and the answer is "Monday", the joke being that Monday always brings fine weather. A more accurate answer would be "more rain", at least at this time of year. But I digress. As I walked into work from the bus stop (the strong winds put me off cycling today) I saw the moon sinking low in the western sky. Seeing as I am still in search of my "blue" photo, I thought I might be able to use the pale moon surrounded by blue sky. I sized up a shot, and immediately noticed an aeroplane flying on a trajectory that would take it right across the face of the moon. I waited until the plane was dead centre and took a series of photos. The first one worked just fine. A little bit of a crop and a small boost in the contrast and I present today's photo, titled "Fly me to the moon".

Full marks to anyone who spotted today's pun too: Monday is named for the moon.

Fly me to the moon

Day 172: The moon's a ballo(o)n

"The Moon's a Balloon" is the title of a book by David Niven. I don't know what it's about, I just remember seeing the cover when I was a kid and being intrigued by the title. And of course, the word "ballon" is the French for ball. Tonight we were down at Locarno Beach watching the sunset and enjoying some fine take-out from East Is East. As always, a few games of beach volleyball were under way. As I wandered along the beach to get a better angle on the rising moon, I saw the ball loop high in the air. Coincidentally, the ball looked to be about the same size as the moon, and a new idea came into my mind. I focussed on the moon and waited.... As soon as I saw the ball in the viewfinder, I started taking photos. I didn't know what I'd got, so I waited a bit longer to make sure I'd really caught the moon and the ball in the frame. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I'd capture the photo below! Very happy with this one. :-)

Playing volleyball with the moon

Day 86: Three eagles and a raccoon

Last night was the full moon closest to midsummer. Many parts of the world witnessed a lovely lunar eclipse which happened mid-afternoon here. I thought about heading out somewhere to catch the moonrise over the city but that didn't happen. I did go out and get a couple of moon pictures (startling a skunk in the process), but it was high in the sky by then. (Or at least as high as the moon gets in the summer.)

I awoke a little after 4:30 am and padded through into the dining room to see if the moon was still visible. Since the sky was clear I picked up the camera and went out onto the balcony to snap a couple of shots. Then I had another idea. I could see where the moon was going to set and I thought I'd be able to combine driving out there with a couple of early-morning errands. And so by 5 am I was driving away from our apartment, the streets empty of traffic. Somewhere along 16th Ave I had to slow down for a well-fed raccoon crossing the road. Five minutes later I was at the viewpoint on Marine Drive with a clear view of the Iona log-booming area, the Strait of Georgia, Vancouver Island and the moon. I noticed a line of clouds over the water, and within a few minutes they were threatening to cover the moon, spoiling my chances of getting a moonset shot over Vancouver Island.

I grabbed a couple of shots as the moon began to duck below the clouds, looking like it was settling into a soft cushy bed. I got back in the car and headed for Siegel's Bagels (passing a couple of trees with three eagles perched on high branches) to pick up the best bagel I've had in ages: still warm from the oven with some delicious tangy cream cheese. Then time for a quick car-wash (no queues at 6 in the morning...) and home again for some coffee.

Putting the moon to bed

Day 77: Midnight moon

As soon as I'd opened my mouth about getting a photo early in the day I thought that there is one way to beat that: take a photo just after midnight. And last night that's what I did :-) I waited until just after midnight and set up the camera on a tripod to capture the crescent moon close to the horizon. Being so close to setting, the photo isn't very sharp - I could clearly see the effects of atmospheric turbulence in the sequence of shots I took, with different parts of the moon looking fuzzier than others at different times. I decided to leave the streetlights on 4th Ave in the frame to add some perspective, as it's a well-known illusion that the moon looks larger when close to the horizon.

Eight minutes into the day. There's clearly some scope to better that ;-) I'm not so sure I'm confident enough to leave taking a photo until just before midnight...

Setting crescent moon

Day 57: Another day, another orb

I was on call for software support at the telescope last night, and I slept quite lightly as a result, waiting for the phone to ring, hoping I'd get to it in time before it woke Maria. In the end my bug-fix from yesterday worked flawlessly (yay) and I wasn't needed. That didn't stop me waking in the early hours and getting up to watch the dawn. A layer of high cloud hung over the North Shore mountains, extending west towards the Sunshine Coast. The easternmost clouds were tinged with pink, and I waited to see how much colour the sunrise would bring.

To the south-west was the setting just-past-full moon, and I turned my attention to that. As sunrise approached, the surrounding sky turned purple then pink, and I took a series of photos to capture the moon. I settled on this photo, the moon and its purple haze. It's a little bit noisy (I had to underexpose it to stop the moon from getting washed out), but I really like the effect of the purple sky and the thin veil of cloud over the lower part of the lunar disc. Never have I had my photo in the bag so soon in the day :-)

Purple moonset

Day 16: Progress around the sun

The earth has travelled through about 4% of its orbit around the sun since I started this project. I thought I was doing well having taken a photo every day for the last two weeks or so, but put like that I still have something like 96% of the task ahead of me...

Time to look at it a different way then. How about the moon? It has travelled more than 50% of its orbit around the Earth since I started. That sounds much better :-) The last two nights have seen clear sunsets, which have felt quite rare of late, and it's been nice to see the young crescent moon in the darkening evening sky.

When we first got our "superzoom" camera a few years ago, I used to take moon pictures almost every clear night. Now I hardly take any as I've come to the conclusion that I need a longer lens and/or a better tripod to take good photos. The telephoto lens for our SLR does quite well, partly thanks to the camera's umpteen megapixels, but it's not often that I'm satisfied with the results. I was too lazy to set up the tripod tonight, so I tried my luck hand-held. This rarely works so I have to wonder why I bother, and yet tonight, between gusts of wind, I was able to get a sharp shot. Thank you, image stabilization.

Crescent moon