Full Moon at Granholmstoppen
Way back in 2004 I made a panorama of photos from the top of Granholmstoppen. I think it turned out great, with one caveat: It was shot using a small Cybershot DSC-U30[a], so the resolution that you see on the linked photo is more or less as large as it goes. I still think it is beautiful, but bigger is better in this case.
I have, through repeated failures, come to the conclusion that I should never try to re-shoot a photo that turned out well. Re-shooting something that turned out bad, by all means; but never try to improve on good, because it'll never work. Yet, I keep trying, and this panorama is at the top of the list of photos that I'd like to re-shoot.
So with a full moon coming up, I decided to ignore common sense, experience and astronomy, and make an attempt. A couple of things became obvious to me:
The panorama was shot on May 31, 2004, and due to the way the solar system works, the rising moon and the setting sun aren't quite synchronized in the same way August 24, 2010. The sun was too low to give the light I was looking for, and by the time the moon made it above the atmospheric haze at the horizon everything was black.
Weather matters. A persistent cloud bank at the horizon made the wait for a full moon even longer. While anyone who has done any nature photography knows that the weather is basically a big lottery, I severely underestimated the time it would take the moon to climb above the clouds at the horizon.
I had misjudged the elevation of the sun required to provide the light I was looking for. With moonrise at 1935 and sunset at 2016, I should have 41 minutes of good light, right? Well, the sun was in the right spot at about 1900, and the moon reached the right spot at about 2045. That 41-minute window turned out to be negative one hour and 45 minutes.
Next year, Moon. Thanks to Google Earth[b] and Stellarium[c], I know exactly where you'll be - in particular on the days surrounding May 14, 2011. I'll be there around then, and if there's a Muslim graveyard there by then - well, the crescent is a symbol of Islam, so I'm sure things'll be all right there.
