Our closest celestial neighbour has kept us company for at least four billion years and has entertained our imagination
in a variety of ways. It certainly has been involved in our maturation as a species with man's first step on a body
beyond our planet during the latter part of the twentienth century and will, inevitably, be our first stop prior to
any sort of manned travel to a further celestial body such as Mars. The moon has been a great source of education about
our own planet's evolutionary history; it has entertained many inquisitive minds from earlier cultures and generations
about the universe in general and man's role in particular; it has enriched the minds of young children taking their
first look through a telescope and continues to impact our lives in ways we may or may not readily recognize including
tidal forces and various natural rhythms and cycles.
Note: The image below is the culmination of over twelve months of repeated efforts to capture
the rising full moon against the Parthenon (447-438 BC) in central Athens and which was finally realized with the Oct/2007
full moon. The primary task in such an exercise is to identify the optimal time after sunset which yields a perfect
balance between the bright moon and the natural lighting of the archaelogical grounds. From a previous exercise involving
the Temple of Poseidon, this was established to be approximately
25 minutes after sunset and, more specifically, when the sun has already set and is approximately four to six degrees below
the horizon. Three months were required to precisely reverse engineer the perspective of the Parthenon with respect to its
physical azimuth and altitude from my shooting location at Philopappou Hill which lies approximately 700 meters due
southwest of the Parthenon. The final exercise involved the identification of the "proper" full moon during the calendar
year which would simultaneously meet the above criteria with respect to lighting balance (full moon and archaeological
grounds) as well as azimuth and altitude.
Note: For additional photos of the rising moon from the same session as well as the rising
moon against the Temple of Poseidon (2005), please click here.
Body: Moon Mass: 0.0123 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 0.2719 x Earth Distance: 356,783 km Sidereal Rev: 27d 07h 43m 11s Age: 15d 10h 40m Phase: 99.5° Diameter: 33.56' Magnitude: -12.6 Rukl: N/A |
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Date: Oct 26, 2007 18:59:06 UT+3 Location: Philopappou Hill, Athens, Greece (37.9691° N, 23.7202° E) Equipment: Canon EOS 300d Canon EOS 28-105 USM II @ 70 mm Exposure: 1 x 0.6 sec @ f4.5 ISO 100 RAW Image Format 3072x2048 image size Auto Mode Software: Canon ZoomBrowser Ex V5.1 Photoshop CS2 Processing: RAW to TIFF (16-bit) conv Unsharp Masking Resampling JPG Compression |