David Lynch suggested this photo shoot on our Facebook page, having planned the location using the Photo pills app, (other apps are available like the Photographer’s Ephemeris). When a full Moon occurs near the Moon’s closest approach to Earth, its perigee, it is often called a Super Moon. It is then quite a bit larger and brighter.
Comparison in size and brightness when the moon is at the min and max distance from the earth. It is always quite a long way, on average 238,000 miles.
David Drage took up the invite and both Davids went out to Aberdeen beach on Sunday evening to shoot the super moon behind the light house at Aberdeen.
From this screenshot of the app as posted by David Lynch, you can see that on Sunday night at 22:36 the moon will be above the horizon behind the Girlde Ness Lighthouse seen from a position near the Mouth of the river Don. So this is where the Davids waited for things to align and hopefully have a cloud free view of the full moon.
From yet another app it looked that there would likely be no low level cloud to mess up the shot.
Moon rising by D.L. All looks good here, clear sky, lighthouse in position. Now just waiting for the moon to move in position.
If you have ever tried this it becomes obvious that the moon moves quite fast through the view of your long lens so our duo had to move camera and tripod rapidly to get the lighthouse and the moon to line up. Quote: “It was fun trying to predict where to stand to get the moon in exactly the right spot. David and I kept racing back and forward along a 70m line – the moon moves pretty quick! “
David Drage’s successful shot.
David Lynch did a tighter shot in portrait format, and removed the pylon seen in David Drage’s photo. 1/60th at 7.1 Iso 320 shot at 500mm
Next Super Moon will be 1 August and also 31 August 2023.
So for those who missed this there are more opportunities coming up, weather permitting.
Visions Photography Club 
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