TelephotoThursday Archives - Bliss Photographics

Moon Hanging with Mars

Here’s a Close / Far Perspective for you. Moon Close, Mars Far…(ish). If you can full screen this, the moon is pretty sharp here….Good seeing that night.

There was an internet/Facebook meme that the Moon and Mars would be in the sky together with a GIANT Mars. Well here they are…. Mars was supposed to be the size of the moon. Darn it….. So disappointed…😜

Captured is the reality, only a “little” different than the meme circulating around with two big globes in the sky. From the human eye perspective this is a giant mars. (that little red dot far right frame). The moon getting close in the sky to mars was obvious looking up that evening. I don’t work night skies very much photographically as it’s off schedule to me. I get jet lag easily lol.

At any rate, I don’t see opportunity to take a planet and our moon in the same frame too often. Well I could zoom WAY back to be able to actually fit them in the frame lol. Only when a planet is close can you do this. The dynamic range difference between the bright moon and the little dim mars is tough to pull out of the dark.

Mars closes approach to earth will be on October 6th 2020 at only 38.6 million miles away. The moon is currently 224,800 miles out which is relatively close I suppose. It does indeed appear larger than it normally would further away lol. Not QUITE the same apparent size as our orbiting partner.. So if you read it on an internet meme, you might want to initially question the information.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Well somewhat over it anyway)

Title: Moon Hanging with Mars

Cliff Kissing the Moon

I think there is some affection there. I think the moon was trying to Dock there….You know, take on supplies and the like…. 😜 📷

Finding the Cliff was easy. Getting far enough away from the rocks to place the cliff in the same focal plane as the moon (infinite) was the hard part. Topography has to cooperate along with celestial agreement. The Moon is mostly a moving target remember. Getting planets and Cliffs to line up has some complexity to the capture to get both in focus. Position your head/camera in the X,Y,Z and time 4th dimension (time in this case). Getting a kiss on a moving face is pretty hard. I had the idea at first of making them contact by moving my head about 1/2 inch to the left. It’s truly amazing how little one has to move to have an object 600 yards plus away (cliff) to cover a moon a couple of hundred thousand miles away. Nailed the focus on the cliff, the moon is a little soft. I will perfect this with time.

This is the Sturgeon Moon, August Moon 2020. Filed under things you can do with a 1200 mm lens…. So far I have many captures of this months moon in various situations that will work their way into my work flow shortly. Remember the full moon was 9 days ago as this posts. That is how long it takes to go from Click to Publish with me doing this essentially full time. I figure I invest on average 1.5 hours work per image/narrative page on average and I publish 4 a day every day.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana).

Title: Cliff Kissing the Moon