A beautiful full moon will grace our skies on Monday November 14 this year. A quick glance at the statistics and you can see what everyone’s buzzing about. The supermoon is up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the smallest full moon of the year (which occurred last April).
What’s more, this supermoon is the closest full moon since January 26, 1948, making it the closest to date in the 21st century. The full moon won’t be this close again until November 25, 2034.
The supermoon story originated five years ago and can be traced back to two unrelated events of March 2011.
On March 11 that year, Japan was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in the disastrous nuclear accident at Fukushima. A week later on March 18, there was a supermoon, a term invented by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979 but it had never been widely used.
Nolle describes a supermoon as either a full moon OR a new moon that occurs when the moon is close by, or more specifically within 90% of its closest approach to Earth. On that basis, you can have four to six supermoons per year.
Nolle’s interest in supermoons is his belief that their “extreme” tidal force can produce natural disasters “ severe floods, powerful earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But the moon “ super or not “ is not capable of such.
But the chance occurrence of the earthquake and the supermoon in the same month, gave enough coverage to the term that it has now entered the public realm. And every year we are encouraged not to miss this rarity.
Before all this, however, astronomers (the science guys) called a supermoon the perigean full moon.
The moon follows an elliptical orbit and over time, its distance to Earth varies across the range 357,000km to 407,000km.
Each orbit, the moon’s closest approach to Earth is known as perigee, while its furthermost point is called apogee. Furthermore, the moon’s orbit twists around the Earth, so perigee and apogee slowly drift in relation to the phases of the moon. A supermoon occurs when the full moon coincides with perigee. Wait about six months later, and the full moon now occurs close to apogee. This results in about a 50,000 km difference between the closest and the most distant full moons each year.
So be sure to head outdoors on Monday, November 14 to see it, hype or not as full moons are glorious, especially when you catch them low to the horizon. Besides, you won't see such an impressive supermoon again until 2034. So you definitely want to get outside to witness this year's phenomenon for yourself.
And just so you know, there won’t be a perigee full moon in 2017 because the full moon and perigee won’t realign again (after November 14, 2016) until January 2, 2018. Looking further into the future, the perigee full moon will come closer than 356,500 kilometers for the first time in the 21st century (2001-2100) on November 25, 2034 (356,446 km). The closest full moon of the 21st century will fall on December 6, 2052 (356,425 km).
What you need
Digital SLR and telephoto lens, or compact camera with long optical zoom
Tripod
Remote shutter release or self-timer option (nice, but not necessary)
Switch out of automatic mode and flick to manual or shutter priority exposure mode. Set your ISO sensitivity to a low level, such as 100 or 200, in order to minimise noise. Your chosen shutter speed will depending on the ambient light and the effect you want to achieve.
The moon is a bright light source and moves surprisingly quickly, so you will need to use a short shutter speed to avoid blowing things out.
Try using the Sunny 16 rule in this case: at f/16, shoot at the reciprocal shutter speed to your ISO. For example, if you're shooting at ISO 100, try 1/100 second (or 1/125, depending on your camera).
Depending on the brightness of the moon, f/16 might be too narrow, so open up to f/11. Experiment by taking test shots, varying your shutter speed and aperture depending on the situation.
Remember, the sharpest results will be achieved when using a narrower aperture, upwards of f/8. Shoot in Raw, which will give you the most latitude for recovering detail in post-processing.
Autofocus and low light generally don't work together very well. Using manual focus will help pinpoint exactly where you want to achieve focus.
Switch into MF mode on your lens or camera body. Activating expanded focus on your camera screen in Live View mode will help find the exact point you want to target without needing to squint through the viewfinder.
For tack-sharp photos, focus stacking is another technique that can come in handy for photographing the moon. Read up on how to get started with focus stacking in this tutorial.
Want to get a shot of the moon all on its own against a stark black sky? Spot metering will help you achieve this look, as it measures the light from only a very small portion of the scene - usually the centre of the viewfinder, but this can vary from camera to camera.
Spot metering will work best when using a long lens. The exposure will not be affected by the other areas of the frame, such as any ambient light from the sky surrounding the moon.
If there are other elements in the frame, evaluative or matrix metering will work best unless you are trying to achieve a silhouette effect. Bracketing your exposure a few stops either side will also be valuable, especially if you are in a hurry and want to ensure that one photo will be usable.
A telephoto lens or long optical zoom on a point-and-shoot is an absolute must for getting in close to the moon. With such a long lens, you will also need some sort of stabilisation device, like a tripod. It's possible -- but not ideal -- to take an image handheld.
Don't want to buy a new zoom? A teleconverter can turn a humble zoom into something a bit more far reaching. While teleconverters give you an effective focal-length boost, many also exacerbate any issues with the lens you attach it to, so the final result may not be as sharp as you expect.
Apart from using a tripod to stabilise the camera, the way you trigger the shutter can also introduce shake into photos. A remote shutter release is one option that can be used to take the photo that avoids you having to physically touch the shutter button.
Alternatively, simply set up the camera on a tripod, and use a self-timer mode to take the image. Set everything up in terms of exposure and focus, then press the shutter button to start the self-timer.
For dSLRs, the simple movement of the mirror flipping up and down to let light hit the sensor can introduce shake. Using mirror lock-up mode will help alleviate the vibration -- check the manual for exactly how it works on your particular model.
The moon against a dark sky is beautiful in itself, but you may want to try a more creative composition. Think about capturing the moon at the beginning of the supermoon phase, picturing surrounds such as buildings, trees and people in the photo as well.
