APOD: Alicante Beach Moonrise (2014 Jul 19)

[APOD Robot]

Alicante Beach Moonrise

Explanation: In this beach and skyscape from Alicante, Spain, July's Full Moon shines in the dark blue twilight, its reflection coloring the Mediterranean waters. Near the horizon, the moonlight is reddened by its long path through the atmosphere, but this Full Moon was also near perigee, the closest point to Earth along the Moon's elliptical orbit. That made it a Supermoon, a mighty 14% larger and 30% brighter than a Full Moon at apogee, the Moon's farthest orbital swing. Of course, most warm summer nights are a good time to enjoy a family meal oceanside, but what fish do you catch on the night of a Supermoon? They must be Moon breams ...

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[Guest]

Moon breams? Seriously?

Nice

[alter-ego]

Moon breams? Seriously?

Nice

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010 ... -20100606/

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2014 ... _of_t.html

Click to view full size image

[Lind]

I like the closer - and, sometimes, a pessimist is nothing more than an inexperienced optimist.

[owlice]

I liked Moon breams, too. A lovely APOD to see and read.

[user]

C.f. supermoon: http://xkcd.com/1394/

[Boomer12k]

Lovely shot....


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[DavidLeodis]

It's an excellent photo.

I do though have a query about it. In the image's Exif data that I was able to find it states the image create date was July 13 2014 8:32:59 PM (timezone not specified). If that was the local time then it would have been 6:32:59 PM under Universal Time (UT), as Alicante was 2 hours ahead of UT. In information that I've found, that Full Moon was on July 12 2014 at 11:25 UT. If the Exif data is correct then the image was taken about 31 hours after the Full Moon (or 33 hours if the Exif time is under UT). Would it still seem to be a Full Moon so long after

[alter-ego]

It's an excellent photo.

I do though have a query about it. In the image's Exif data that I was able to find it states the image create date was July 13 2014 8:32:59 PM (timezone not specified). If that was the local time then it would have been 6:32:59 PM under Universal Time (UT), as Alicante was 2 hours ahead of UT. In information that I've found, that Full Moon was on July 12 2014 at 11:25 UT. If the Exif data is correct then the image was taken about 31 hours after the Full Moon (or 33 hours if the Exif time is under UT). Would it still seem to be a Full Moon so long after

A good observation David.

I think the answer is simply the correct timestamp (camera clock) setting / location cannot be determined, and the picture was actually taken on the 12th.

The APOD shows a moon ~2.1° above the horizon, and if taken on July 13, the corresponding time would 22:20 CEST (20:20pm UT) with the sun ~9.5°below the horizon. Both the lack of lunar phase visibility and possibly the residual sunset illumination on the beach don't fit well with the 13th as is indicated by the ephemeris images below.

test.png

If image were taken on 7/12, it would have been at 21:33 CEST (19:33 UT), with the sun ~1.2° below the horison . Here, the apparent phase, skylight and beach illumination seems more in line.

test3.png

I'll add that if the dates in question were July 11th & 12th the differentiation in phase visibility is significantly reduced, i.e. we probably couldn't tell any difference in apparent "fullness."

Hope this helps.

[DavidLeodis]

Thanks alter-ego for that very informative reply.