Super Moon and Mini-Moon

On March 19th, lots of people heard about the so-called Super Moon. The Super Moon was a full Moon that occurred when the Moon was closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit. Therefore, it appeared slightly larger and brighter in the night sky. The difference is small enough that most people would probably have trouble telling the difference without visual aid (I know lots of people said they could, but how many of them look at the Moon on a regular enough basis to judge? I would love to start a rumor that some random month had a super Moon and watch everyone claim it looks so much bigger but that's another story!)

Tonight is the smallest full Moon of the year which I have dubbed Mini-Moon for lack of a better term. The Moon near the farthest point in its orbit on the evening of full Moon. Again, it's not much smaller and you probably have a hard time telling the difference without visual aid.

Now I used visual aid in the form of a Canon Digital Rebel Xti and a 70-300mm zoom lens (at 300mm of course). I took a pic back on March 19th and another one just now. Not much has been done to them and they didn't come out as well as I had hoped, but the size is clearly different.

These are at the same scale of course. You can clearly see the March 19th pic (left) shows a larger Moon than tonight's photo (right). You don't need a lot of expensive equipment to do this type of photography. Many people have cameras similar to mine with comparable zoom lenses.

You can do the same with the Sun if you have a solar filter. Earth is closest to the Sun in early January and farthest from the Sun in early July. I think I will get some solar filter material and make that a 2012 project!

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.