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Moon & Sun { 564 images } Created 19 Feb 2011

A gallery of images (both wide-angle nightscapes and telescopic close-ups) of our Moon and Sun. Included are shots of the Full Moon and Harvest Moon. Separate galleries are dedicated to Lunar and Solar Eclipses, and to Atmospheric Phenomena.

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Rising Moon with Jupiter at Oppositi...jpg
$This is the Moon one day after full, rising over my local prairie horizon, with atmospheric refraction flattening the disk and adding a faint green rim to the top limb. This serves to illustrate the effect of refraction distorting objects on the horizon and absorption reddening objects when they are low in the sky. This is a single shot taken October 29, 2023 from near home in southern Alberta, with the RF70-200mm lens at 200mm on the Canon R5.$

Refracted Moonrise (Oct 29, 2023).jpg
$The Full Hunter's Moon of October 28, 2023, with contrast enhanced to bring out the differences in shading and colours on the lunar disk, and the bright rays from craters such as Tycho at bottom, and also the surrounding deep blue moonlit sky. The Moon was a few hours past full at this time, after a partial lunar eclipse earlier in the day that was visible from Europe and the Eastern Hemisphere, but not from my location. Even the penumbral eclipse was over by the time I shot this early in my evening in clearing skies. This is a single image with the Askar APO120 refractor and its 1.0x Flattener for 840mm focal length and with the Canon R5, here with the full frame.$

Hunter's Full Moon (Oct 28, 202...jpg
Super Blue Moon Panorama (Aug 30, 20...jpg
Sunset over Harvested Field.jpg
Rising Blue SuperMoon (Aug 30, 2023).jpg
Full Moon over Harvested Field (Aug ...jpg
Moon and Harvester (Sept 2, 2023).jpg
Moon and Antares Conjunction (Aug 24...jpg
Full Moon in Blue Sky (Aug 29, 2023).jpg
Moonrise over Bow River (Aug 1, 2023...jpg
Moonrise over Bow River (Aug 1, 2023...jpg
Supermoon Rise (July 31, 2023) #1.jpg
Supermoon Rise (July 31, 2023) #2.jpg
Smoky Sunset (July 18, 2023).jpg
Crescent Moon and Venus (July 20, 20...jpg
Crescent Moon in Sunset Colors.jpg
Crescent Moon and Venus with Close-U...jpg
$This is the active Sun on July 9, 2023, with numerous sunspot groups across the disk, including the very large region AR3363 at lower left that had just turned into view. At top is the pair of spots comprising AR3361, and at lower right another pair AR3366. Bright faculae are visible on the darker limbs of the Sun as well as the general fine granulation across the surface. North is approximately up here. This is a single image, selected from nearly 350 taken within the space of a few seconds using the Canon R5 in high-speed continuous burst mode at about 20 fps, with purely electronic shutter and with the camera in crop-frame mode to reduce the frame size and crop into the solar disk. This was through the Astro-Physics 130mm refractor with a 2X Barlow lens for f/12 and 1600mm focal length, and for 1/250 second at ISO 100. The scope had a full aperture Kendrick/Baader Mylar filter on it. The yellow coloration was added in processing. Taken as part of practising and testing for the upcoming solar eclipses.$

Sun and Sunspots (July 9, 2023).jpg
$This is the active Sun on July 8, 2023, with numerous sunspot groups across the disk, including the very large region AR3363 at lower left that had just turned into view. At top is the pair of spots comprising AR3361, and at lower right another pair AR3366. Bright faculae are visible on the darker limbs of the Sun, as well as the general fine granulation across the surface. North is approximately up here. This is a single image, selected from nearly 350 taken within the space of a few seconds using the Canon R5 in high-speed continuous burst mode at about 20 fps, with purely electronic shutter and with the camera in crop-frame mode to reduce the frame size and crop into the solar disk. This was through the Astro-Physics 130mm refractor with a 2X Barlow lens for f/12 and 1600mm focal length, and for 1/400 second at ISO 100. The scope had a full aperture Kendrick/Baader Mylar filter on it. The yellow coloration was added in processing. Taken as part of practising and testing for the upcoming solar eclipses.$

Sun and Sunspots (July 8, 2023).jpg
Moon, Venus and Mars (June 21, 2023).jpg
Moon & Venus in Twilight (200mm).jpg
Moon & Venus in Twilight (300mm).jpg
Moonrise over Red Deer River.jpg
Moonrise over Red Deer River (May 5,...jpg
Easter Full Moonrise (April 5, 2023).jpg
$The conjunction of the waxing 4-day-old crescent Moon below the Pleiades, and set in a slightly hazy sky on March 25, 2023. The haze adds the colourful "lunar corona" halo around the bright crescent of the Moon from diffraction effects in the high icy clouds. Shot before the sky got dark, the remaining twilight adds the blue to the background sky. Earthshine is visible on the dark side of the Moon. This is a blend of 9 exposures, from 1/160 second to 6 seconds, to retain the bright crescent while recording the faint stars and Earthshine. All at ISO 400 with the Canon R5 and through the SharpStar 76mm EDPH refractor at f/4.5 for a focal length of 340mm. The field of view is similar to 10x binoculars. Exposures were blended not with HDR or luminosity masks but with Blend If settings applied with the Blake Rudis f64 Blend-If extension panel in Photoshop, which makes it easier to apply and adjust the blend points and feathering of the blends. Diffraction spikes added for artistic effect to make the stars "sparkle" using the Astronomy Tools actions. A mild Orton Glow added with Luminar Neo to make the overall scene "pop."$

Moon and Pleiades (March 25, 2023).jpg
Thin Moon and Jupiter Setting (March...jpg
$The setting Sun descending into a fog bank looking due west, on the evening of the vernal equinox, March 20, 2023. The fog dims and reddens the Sun, illustrating atmospheric absorption, and refraction as the solar disk is quite flattened. A couple of sunspots are just visible. The colour gradient is natural and comes from the blend of fog below and clearer twilight sky above. This is a single exposure with the RF100-400mm lens at 400mm on the Canon R5. Autofocused on the Sun.$

The Setting Sun in Fog.jpg
$The rising Full "Wolf" Moon of January 6, 2023 over the Badlands of Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumheller, Alberta. The sequence demonstrates the changes in colour of the rising Moon from atmospheric absorption, and changes in its shape from atmospheric refraction. This night the Moon was full almost at the same time as it rose from my location. However, the Moon's high northerly declination — it was about 4° north of the ecliptic — meant that it rose far to the northeast and some 30 minutes before the Sun set, despite the Moon being opposite the Sun. As such, even for the last shot, with the Moon several Moon diameters in altitude, the Sun was still up and lighting the landscape. In fact, at that time the Sun broke through clouds in the southwest to light the foreground with warm light. In this blend, the ground and majority of the sky comes from the final image with the highest Moon and warmest landscape lighting. For the earlier shots the Moon came up in a very bright sky. And so, to better represent the scene, some of the sky coloration — the magentas and cyans — comes from earlier exposures blended in with broad-brush masks. Dark anti-crepuscular rays also added subtle sky colouration and bands of darker blue. This is a sequence of 9 images at an interval of 2.5 minutes, extracted from a set of 80 frames taken every 15 seconds with the camera on automatic exposure, as the sky and ground remained bright enough for an accurate meter reading. The first 8 Moons are masked and layered in with a Lighten blend mode. All images were the Canon R5 at ISO 125 and Canon RF100-400mm lens at 281mm and f/8. Most processing in Adobe Camera Raw with ground and sky masks. Glow and dynamic contrast filters added with ON1 Effects plug-in.$

Winter Moonrise Sequence (R5 RF100-4...jpg
Winter Moonrise in Crepuscular Rays ...jpg
Winter Moonrise over Badlands (R5 10...jpg
$This is the waxing gibbous Moon (11.7 days old) near reddish Mars (above the Moon), and with reddish Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster below. All are set in a swirl of clouds, looking like they are in an interstellar nebula. Diffraction from ice crystals in the clouds adds the colourful corona around the Moon. This was the Moon-Mars conjunction of January 3, 2023. Mars was then about a month past opposition. This is a blend of 8 exposures, from 8 seconds to 1/500th second, to compress the high dynamic range in brightness and recreate the view more as the eye saw it. Exposures blended with luminosity masks created with Lumenzia. All frames were with the Canon RF100-400mm lens at 100mm and f/5.6, and on the Canon R5 at ISO 400. The camera was on a tracking mount to prevent the stars from trailing. Diffraction spikes added for artistic effect with AstronomyTools Actions. A mild Orton Glow added with Nik Collection/Color EFX.$

Moon, Mars and Hyades (Jan 3, 2023).jpg
$This is the waxing gibbous Moon (11.7 days old) near reddish Mars (at upper right), both set in a swirl of clouds, looking like they are in an interstellar nebula. Diffraction from ice crystals in the clouds adds the colourful corona around the Moon. This was the Moon-Mars conjunction of January 3, 2023. Mars was then about a month past opposition. This is a blend of 6 exposures, from 5 seconds to 1/200th second, to compress the high dynamic range in brightness and recreate the view more as the eye saw it. Exposures blended with luminosity masks. All were with the Canon RF100-400mm lens at 300mm and f/8, and on the Canon R5 at ISO 400. The camera was on a tracking mount to prevent the stars from trailing. Diffraction spikes on Mars added for artistic effect with AstronomyTools Actions. A mild Orton Glow added with Luminar Neo.$

Moon and Mars (Jan 3, 2023).jpg
$The first quarter Moon near the planet Jupiter (at right) amid a hazy sky adding a colourful diffraction effect around the Moon — a lunar "corona." This is a blend of 6 exposures, from 8 seconds to 1/125th second, two stops apart, all at f/7.1 with the Canon RF100-400mm lens at 174mm and Canon R5 at ISO 400. Blended with luminosity masks to retain details on the disk of the Moon but with it set in the bright halo and moonlit sky. Jupiter at right mostly comes from the 2-second exposure, to minimize its trailing in this set of untracked camera-on-tripod exposures. The background sky and trailed stars come from the longest exposure. This was partly a test of this new lens as it was used here straight out of the box for the first time on this scene.$

Quarter Moon & Jupiter (Dec 29, ...jpg
$A close-up view of the reappearance of Mars from behind the disk of the Full Moon, during the December 7, 2022 occultation of Mars. Some of the dark mare areas covered in volcanic dust are visible on the disk of Mars, contrasting with the dark volcanic mare areas of the Moon. The region on the lunar limb that Mars is rising behind is the dark area called Mare Smythii. The main mare or "terra" region on Mars visible here is Mare Cimmerium. On the Moon's disk, Mare Crisium is at top, while below it is Mare Fecunditatis, with the prominent rayed crater Messier A. This is a crop in from a single frame, not a stack, grabbed from the 8K video file taken with a Canon R5 camera shooting through the Astro-Physics 130mm refractor with a 2X Barlow, for a focal length of 1560mm at f/12. This frame had the best sharpness of many, as the seeing conditions were quite blurry for most of the time. Colour grading of the Canon Log3 video file was with Pixelmator Pro's new video editing functions, which included doing the crop.$

Occultation of Mars Reappearance Clo...jpg
Mars Occultation Composite (Dec 7, 2...jpg
$Mars is about to be occulted by the Full Moon on December 7, 2022. This is ingress with the eastward moving (i.e. right to left here) Moon about to cover up Mars on the Moon's western limb. The sky had thin cloud adding the colourful halo, or "corona," around the Moon, so the sky is not black. Mars was at opposition this night and so was the Moon, so the Moon was full and Mars was at its brightest for this appearance in 2022. The size of the Martian disk was 17 arc seconds across this night and its magnitude was -1.8. Mars is twice the actual size of the Moon, but appears tiny here due to its greater distance — some 206 times farther away than the Moon. This night, the Moon was 397,000 kilometres away, near is apogee point, while Mars was 82 million kilometres away, a week after its closest approach. This is a single 1/80-second exposure — it is not an exposure blend or composite — with the Canon R5 camera at ISO 400 and on the Astro-Physics 130EDT refractor with a 2x Barlow for an effective focal length of 1560mm at f/12. I've processed the image for high contrast on the lunar disk (using a Subject mask in Camera Raw) to emphasize its lunar seas and bright ray structures, such as from the crater Tycho at bottom, a relatively recent impact. I also brought out the sky colours from the clouds for added effect.$

Full Moon and Mars at Occultation (D...jpg
Reflected Moonrise at Crawling Lake ...jpg
Reflected Moonrise at Crawling Lake ...jpg
Hunter's Moonrise (Oct 8, 2022).jpg
$The rising Full Moon of September 9, 2022, the Harvest Moon for 2022, coming up over a rolling harvested prairie field near home in southern Alberta, on a very clear evening. This is a composite of 11 exposures blended with Lighter Color mode onto the base layer exposure of the Moon just coming up and the sky and ground. The subsequent exposures were shot at increasingly shorter shutter speeds to preserve the colour and brightness of the Moon's disk (ie. exposing for the Moon not the sky or ground). Shot at 1 minute intervals, but exposures taken every 3 minutes were selected for the composite except at the start when atmospheric refraction makes the Moon rise faster than it does later in the sequence. All were shot with the Canon R5 and RF70-200mm lens at 200mm.$

Harvest Moonrise Composite (Sept 9, ...jpg
Harvest Moonrise (Sept 9, 2022).jpg
$The thin waning crescent Moon above Venus in the dawn sky on August 25, 2022, in a portrait oriented version. This is a single shot with the RF70-200mm lens at 110mm on the Canon R6. Diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions.$

Waning Moon & Venus - Portrait (...jpg
Waning Moon & Venus - Landscape ...jpg
$The Full Moon rise of August 11, 2022 over the old grain elevator on Highway 10 at Dorothy, Alberta, in the Badlands of the Red Deer River valley. This was dubbed a "supermoon" and the "Sturgeon Moon" in the popular media. It just happened to rise at a location that placed it right down the south-east facing highway in the valley. I used The Photographer's Ephemeris to locate the spot to get the shot! This is a blend of two exposures: 6-second exposure for the ground and 1/4-second for the Moon, taken moments apart and both with the Canon R5 at ISO 800, on the William Optics 66mm f/7 apo refractor for a focal length of 460mm. I added a mild Orton glow effect to the ground with Luminar AI. Dodging and burning added with a neutral grey layer created with Lumenzia.$

Full Moonrise at Dorothy v2 (Aug 11,...jpg
$The Full Moon rise of August 11, 2022 over the old grain elevator on Highway 10 at Dorothy, Alberta, in the Badlands of the Red Deer River valley. This was dubbed a "supermoon" and the "Sturgeon Moon" in the popular media. It just happened to rise at a location that placed it right down the south-east facing highway in the valley. I used The Photographer's Ephemeris app to locate the spot to get the shot! This is a single 1.6-second exposure with the Canon R5 at ISO 800, on the William Optics 66mm f/7 apo refractor for a focal length of 460mm. However, an unending stream of cars coming down the hill and then toward me as the Moon rose made it impossible to get a shot free of headlights. And yet, in the 20 minutes prior waiting for the Moon to rise, not a car was to be seen. I added a mild Orton glow effect to the ground with Luminar AI. Dodging and burning added with a neutral grey layer created with Lumenzia.$

Full Moonrise at Dorothy v1 (Aug 11,...jpg
Super Moonrise Over Badlands Panoram...jpg
Super Moonrise Over Badlands.jpg
Super Moonrise in Earth's Shado...jpg
Crescent Moon Setting at Dinosaur Pa...jpg
Crescent Moon over Red Deer River.jpg
Conjunction of Moon and Venus Close-...jpg
Conjunction of Moon and Venus in Twi...jpg
Conjunction of Moon and Venus (June ...jpg
Moon, Venus and Pleiades (June 26, 2...jpg
Sunset Over Harvest Field (Aug 31, 2...jpg
Harvest Moon & Windmill #2 (Sept...jpg
Harvest Moon & Windmill #1 (Sept...jpg
Moonrise (Sept 1, 2012).jpg
Full Moon Over Harvest (August 31, 2...jpg
Blue Moonrise (August 31, 2012).jpg
Moon Over Banff Townsite (July 29, 2...jpg
Athabasca Moon (July 2012).jpg
$The Sun, on June 16, 2012 with a sizable sunspot group, AR 1504. Taken with the 130mm Astro-Physics refractor at f/12 with a 2x Barlow lens and Canon 60Da camera at ISO 100 and 1/250 second. Through a Baader filter with color added in Photoshop.$

Sun & Sunspot (June 16, 2012).jpg
$The rising waning crescent Moon on the morning of June 16, 2012, taken from home through the 130mm apo refractor at f/6 and with the Canon 60Da.$

Rising Waning Crescent Moon (June 16...jpg
Rising Full Snow Moon over TELUS Spa...jpg
$Rising Full Moon on January 8, 2012, with the Moon rising nearly synchronous with the setting Sun for good lighting. Taken with 200mm lens and 1.4x Extender and Canon 7D camera. Pink Belt of Venus twilight glow is prominent here. Some green rim visible on top limb of the Moon with the Moon's disk squashed from refraction. Taken from home in southern Alberta.$

Full Moonrise (Jan 8, 2012) #1.jpg
Moon and Three Planets at Dawn (Marc...jpg
Rising Moon at Equinox (March 18, 20...jpg
$This is the wide conjunction of the 1.5-day-old crescent Moon below Jupiter in the southwest evening sky of February 2, 2022. The two worlds appeared 4.5° apart at this time. Earthshine is visible on the "dark side of the Moon." Taken from home in southern Alberta on an evening with the temperature at -20° C and a brisk wind! This is a single 1.6-second exposure with the Canon 70-200mm f/4 RF lens at f/4 and 84mm focal length, and with the Canon Ra camera at ISO 100. Diffraction spikes on Jupiter added with Astronomy Tools actions.$

Waxing Moon and Jupiter (Feb 2, 2022...jpg
Rising Cold Winter Moon v1 (Dec 19, ...jpg
Rising Cold Winter Moon v2 (Dec 19, ...jpg
Hunter's Moonrise (Oct 20, 2021...jpg
$A telescopic close-up of the full Harvest Moon rising over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park on September 20, 2021. This is a single 0.8-second exposure taken as part of a time-lapse sequence, shot through a 76mm f/4.4 refractor telescope for an effective focal length of 335mm using the Canon R6 at ISO 100. Luminosity masks created with TKActions v8 applied to enhance the contrast of the foreground. A mild Orton glow added with Luminar AI.$

Harvest Moon at Dinosaur Park (SS76 ...jpg
Equinox Sunset (Sept 22, 2021).jpg
Equinox Moonrise (Sept 21, 2021).jpg
Equinox Sunset (Sept 21, 2021).jpg
Harvest Moonrise over Badlands (105m...jpg
Smoky Full Moon of July 2021.jpg
$A comparison of the Sun with Earth at perihelion (closest to the Sun) on January 5, 2020 vs. the Sun with Earth near aphelion (farthest from the Sun) on July 8, 2021, showing the slight difference in size of the Sun's disk due to Earth's changing distance from the Sun through the year. For this version I superimposed both images and split them down the middle. Earth was 152,100,527 kilometres from the Sun on the actual day of aphelion, July 5 (which was cloudy!) and 147,091,144 km from the Sun on January 5, 2020. On January 5, 2020 the Sun was at the closest perihelion of the 21st century (though by only a tiny margin), making for the largest solar disk we will see. So that made this a “supersun!” The disk was virtually spotless both days. I shot both with the same equipmment — the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor, with AP 2X Barlow for f/12 and with the Canon 60Da at ISO 100. The filter was the glass Thousand Oaks metal-on-glass filter which imparts a yellow tone to the image.$

Sun at Perihelion & Aphelion Com...jpg
$A comparison of the Sun with Earth at perihelion (closest to the Sun) on January 5, 2020 vs. the Sun with Earth near aphelion (farthest from the Sun) on July 8, 2021, showing the slight difference in size of the Sun's disk due to Earth's changing distance from the Sun through the year. Earth was 152,100,527 kilometres from the Sun on the actual day of aphelion, July 5 (which was cloudy!), and 147,091,144 km from the Sun on January 5, 2020. On January 5, 2020 the Earth was at its closest perihelion of the 21st century (though by only a tiny margin), making for the largest solar disk we will see. So that made this a “supersun!” The disk was virtually spotless both days. I shot both with the same equipment — the Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm refractor, with AP 2X Barlow for f/12 and with the Canon 60Da at ISO 100. The filter was the glass Thousand Oaks metal-on-glass filter which imparts a yellow tone to the image.$

Sun at Perihelion & Aphelion Com...jpg
Rising Strawberry Moon (June 24, 202...jpg
Rising Strawberry Moon (June 24, 202...jpg
Rising Strawberry Moon & Clouds ...jpg
$The Full Moon of June 24, 2021, colloquially called the "Strawberry Moon," just rising over the distant hill at McGregor Lake in southern Alberta. The disk of the Moon is flattened by atmospheric refraction and tinted golden from atmospheric absorption, as is the case for all rising and setting Moons, and Suns. This is an exposure blend of two images: a long one for the sky and water, and a shorter one for the disk of the Moon, to prevent it from being overexposed. This was with the Canon EOS Ra and 200mm L lens and 1.4x Extender for 280mm focal length.$

Rising Strawberry Moon (June 24, 202...jpg
$This is a comparison pair of the Full Moon at apogee (farthest from Earth for the year) at left, and at perigee (closest to Earth) at right, with the perigean Moon being a so-called "Supermoon". This apogee Moon was shot on Halloween, October 31, 2020 and was the smallest, most distant Full Moon of 2020. It was also a “Blue Moon,” as any Full Moon on the 31st of a month has to be, meaning it was the second Full Moon of the calendar month. The perigee Moon was the "Pink" Moon of 2021. With the apogee Moon, the Moon was actually full about 12 hours earlier, so there is a slight phase on its disk, with a terminator visible on the Moon’s eastern limb at right. With the perigee Moon, the Moon was officially full just 2 hours prior to this image, so that disk is very fully illuminated. In this pair the perigee Moon is about 15% larger than the apogee Moon. This shows an example of the lunar disk size at its extremes. Most Full Moons appear midway in size between these two examples. The two Moons also show the effect of libration where, in this case, more of the southern limb is tipped toward us on the perigee Moon, and more of the northern limb toward us on the apogee Moon. Being Full Moons, the bright rays emanating from “recent” impacts, particularly from large craters such as Tycho (bottom) and Copernicus (left), are prominent on each disk. Both are single exposures with the same equipment — the Astro-Physics 130mm EDF refractor with the 2x AP Barlow lens (for a focal length of 1560mm) and Canon 6D MkII camera at ISO 100. I developed both images for increased contrast and colour saturation to bring out the subtle colour differences in the mare areas. Slight haze on the Oct. 31 night mutes the contrast slightly.$

Full Moon at Apogee vs Perigee Compa...jpg
$This is a comparison pair of the Full Moon at apogee (farthest from Earth for the year) at left, and at perigee (closest to Earth) at right, with the perigean Moon being a so-called "Supermoon". This apogee Moon was shot on Halloween, October 31, 2020 and was the smallest, most distant Full Moon of 2020. It was also a “Blue Moon,” as any Full Moon on the 31st of a month has to be, meaning it was the second Full Moon of the calendar month. The perigee Moon was the "Pink" Moon of 2021. With the apogee Moon, the Moon was actually full about 12 hours earlier, so there is a slight phase on its disk, with a terminator visible on the Moon’s eastern limb at right. With the perigee Moon, the Moon was officially full just 2 hours prior to this image, so that disk is very fully illuminated. In this pair the perigee Moon is about 15% larger than the apogee Moon. This shows an example of the lunar disk size at its extremes. Most Full Moons appear midway in size between these two examples. The two Moons also show the effect of libration where, in this case, more of the southern limb is tipped toward us on the perigee Moon, and more of the northern limb toward us on the apogee Moon. Being Full Moons, the bright rays emanating from “recent” impacts, particularly from large craters such as Tycho (bottom) and Copernicus (left), are prominent on each disk. Both are single exposures with the same equipment — the Astro-Physics 130mm EDF refractor with the 2x AP Barlow lens (for a focal length of 1560mm) and Canon 6D MkII camera at ISO 100. I developed both images for increased contrast and colour saturation to bring out the subtle colour differences in the mare areas. Slight haze on the Oct. 31 night mutes the contrast slightly.$

Full Moon at Apogee vs Perigee Compa...jpg
$The close Full Moon, dubbed the Pink Supermoon, of April 26, 2021, with it low in a blue twilight sky about 30 minutes after moonrise, and with the Moon still reddened by the atmosphere. The top limb is red and bottom limb green with atmospheric refraction. This is a single image, 1/20 second at ISO 100 with the Canon 6D MkII through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT refractor with a 2x Barlow for f/12 and 1560mm focal length.$

Perigean Full Moon in Blue Twilight ...jpg
$The close Full Moon, dubbed the Pink Supermoon, of April 26, 2021, with it rising above my prairie horizon to the southeast this night. The Sun was still up and illuminating the foreground. This is a focus blend of two images — one focused for the distant landscape and one focused for the Moon, each 1/25 second at ISO 100 with the Canon 6D MkII through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT refractor with a 2x Barlow for f/12 and 1560mm focal length.$

Rising Pink Supermoon (April 26, 202...jpg
$The close Full Moon, dubbed the Pink Supermoon, of April 26, 2021, with it high in a dark sky and about 2 hours after the moment of actual Full Moon but this was about 10 hours before the Moon reached a close perigee. I've processed this to enhance the contrast and colour differences in the lunar seas, the mare. This is a single image, 1/250 second at ISO 100 with the Canon 6D MkII through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT refractor with a 2x Barlow for f/12 and 1560mm focal length. Topaz Sharpen AI applied very mildly, as it added artifacts if set too high or on Auto.$

Full Moon at Close Perigee (April 26...jpg
$The close Full Moon, dubbed the Pink Supermoon, of April 26, 2021, with it still low in a purple twilight sky shortly after moonrise, and with the Moon still reddened by the atmosphere. The top limb is red and bottom limb green with atmospheric refraction. This is a single image, 1/20 second at ISO 100 with the Canon 6D MkII through the Astro-Physics 130mm EDT refractor with a 2x Barlow for f/12 and 1560mm focal length.$

Perigean Full Moon in Purple Twiligh...jpg
$A single shot of the 6-day old Moon with the Lunar X and Lunar V formations just visible late in their apparition at this lunation, as the peaks and ridges that make up the apparent formations, and the area around them, were beginning to light up fully, so the effect was being lost. They X and V (the latter just above centre) were more obvious a few hours earlier. This is a single 1/100th second exposure with the Canon 6D MkII at ISO 100 on the A&M 106mm refractor at f/6, with the image size doubled and the frame cropped, and Topaz Sharpen AI applied. Taken March 20, 2021 from home in Alberta at 9:37 pm MDT.$

6-Day Moon with X & V.jpg
$The rising Full Moon of February 27, 2021, the "Snow Moon" of the year. The Moon was technically fullest earlier in the day, some 16 hours before I shot this, and so was slightly past full when it rose for me this evening in southern Alberta. This is a composite stack of 9 short exposures for the Moon, blended with a single longer exposure for the ground and sky taken at the start of the moonrise sequence. But using the same exposure for the moons as I used for the sky would have resulted in vastly overexposed moons. As it was, I adjusted the exposures for the Moon from 0.6 seconds for the first (lowest) Moon to 1/30 second for the last (highest) Moon, to keep the moons properly exposed through the sequence, as it brightened as it rose. But it remained very yellow throughout due to atmospheric absorption of the blue wavelengths. The background exposure for the ground and sky was 2.5 seconds. The sky was much darker than the Moon, because it rose nearly 45 minutes after sunset this night, so the sky had darkened quite a bit by moonrise. All shots were through a SharpStar 76mm EDPH apo refractor with the matching SharpStar 0.8x field flattener/reducer, for an effective focal length of 335mm at f/4.4. The camera was the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 100. I shot images every 5 seconds, for possible use in a time-lapse. But having images spaced that closely together in time made it possible to select images with the Moon's disk just nicely separated to be touching. While the Moon moves its own diameter every 2 minutes due to Earth's rotation, the effect of atmospheric refraction will make it appear to rise at a different rate when it is closer to the horizon than when it is higher. Having lots of frames to pick from made it possible to pick just the right ones for the correct spacing. As it was, the time between the frames used for this composite was about 2 minutes.$

Rising Full Snow Moon (Feb 27, 2021).jpg
Moon, Mercury & Jupiter (Jan 14,...jpg
Moonrise at Dino Park Composite (85m...jpg
Moonrise over Dinosaur Park.jpg
Moonrise at Dinosaur Park Panorama (...jpg
Cold Moon Rising over Dinosaur Park.jpg
$A large sunspot group, the largest in many months at the time, on December 1, 2020. Taken with the 105mm Traveler refractor with 2X Barlow for f/12 and Canon 60Da camera at ISO 100 for 1/800 sec with the Thousand Oaks glass filter.$

Sunspot Dec 1, 2020 (105mm 60Da).jpg