Astrophotography by Anthony Ayiomamitis

Lunar Image Gallery - Scenic Phenomenon

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 an extension of a prolonged effort to capture the rising full moon against the Temple of Poseidon (450-440 BC) in southern Greece and which was finally realized in early May/2005 as well as June/2008 (for example, see here). The primary task in such an exercise is to reverse engineer as accurately as possible the perspective of the Temple of Poseidon with respect to its physical azimuth and altitude from my proposed shooting location approximately 1670 meters northwest of the foreground and the primary road which connects Sounion with Athens along the west coast of Attica. Such a distance was both desireable and ideal so as to have a greater balance between the apparent size of the Temple of Poseidon in the foreground and Luna in the background and as confirmed by the image below. Three other efforts and results from the same session in addition to the image below are available here, here, and here.

Note: For additional photos of the sun and/or full moon against other well-known Greek archaeological grounds and sites, please click here.


Image Details
Selene Rising at Sounion (2011)
Imaging Details
Body:
Moon

Mass:
0.0123 x Earth

Mean Eq Diameter:
0.2719 x Earth

Distance:
387,101 km

Sidereal Rev:
27d 07h 43m 11s

Age:
15d 09h 39m

Phase:
99.7°

Diameter:
30.89'

Magnitude:
-12.6

Rukl:
N/A
Date:
July 15, 2011
21:01:37 UT+3


Location:
Sounion, Greece

Equipment:
Takahashi FSQ 106/f5
TeleVue 2x Big Barlow
Canon EOS 5D Mark I
Baader UV/IR-Cut Filter


Exposure:
1 x 0.3 sec
ISO 400
RAW Image Format
4368x2912 image size
Manual Mode


Software:
Digital Photo Pro V1.6.1.0
Photoshop CS2


Processing:
Resampling (17%)
JPG Compression