A husky called Nik. Just animated it a few times so it dioesn’t annoy you too much!
Seasonal conjunction of the Moon, with Jupiter and a snowy Christmas tree!
Let’s hope for clear skies tonight and tomorrow night too!
The Moon orbits the earth in an ellipse that has the Earth as its focus. But that ellipse is slightly off centre, meaning that the Moon comes closer to the Earth at times but at other times it is further away. In any given year there will be a full Moon that is the closest and another that is furthest from Earth; these are known as Lunar Perigee and Apogee, respectively. It has been a goal of mine to photograph these two events for some time now and this year, for the first time, I managed it, with a clear night on both dates. The composite photo shows quite clearly the difference in apparent size, both images are to the same scale.
One final note: I have slightly enhanced the colour in each image but note that the October Moon has slightly more colour in it than the March image. This could be due to a variety of factors - light pollution, air temperature and altitude being examples. We generally see images of the Moon without colour but it’s interesting to bring out a little colour to add further interest.
