By Laurie
I have been attempting to learn to use PhotoPills, a mobile phone app that helps photographers plan locations and times for photographs. With this app I have been trying to setup a full moon photograph since last December, only to be deterred by cold or cloudy weather every month. Since the full moon rises in a different location each month (between winter and summer, the direction of the full moon rise varies by about 30°), I have had to plan multiple times to find suitable background and shooting locations.
The weather finally cooperated for April’s full moon, which was actually a Supermoon – so called because when the moon is closest to the earth it appears about 14% larger than when it is farthest from the earth. The April full moon is called a Pink Moon by the Maine Farmer’s Almanac which published American Indian Moon names for the months of the year. According to the almanac, the Pink Moon was named after the herb moss pink, also known as creeping phlox, moss phlox, or mountain phlox. This plant is native to the eastern United States and is one of the earliest widespread flowers of spring.
My plan for April was to photograph the full moon adjacent to a cell phone tower on a hill several miles away above Daphna Road in Rockingham County, VA, and there was a clear area to photograph the tower and moon not far from our house. PhotoPills showed that the apparent size of the moon by the tower was 115′ which I verified independently. By comparing the height of the tower and the apparent diameter of the moon on the photograph, I calculated the tower height to be about 200′. The actual tower height is 199.15′.
I also put the image the photo gallery below so it can be viewed as a larger image
Technical Information
Super Moon over Daphna Tower
- Date: 4/26/2021
- Time: 8:04 PM
- Camera: Canon EOS 77D
- Lens: Sigma 70-200 mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM telephoto zoom lens & Sigma 1.4 teleconverter
- Settings:
- Lens: 280 mm, f/9.5
- ISO: 100
- Shutter: 1/20 sec
- Uncropped image is 6000 x 4000 px
- GPS: 38°35’44.4228″ N, 78°49’36.3612″ W