A Blue Moon for New Year's Eve 2009/2010

#1

01.01.10

Perhaps it is fitting that my first blog entry highlight one of my favorite things in the universe; the moon.  The problem is that this is an iPhone photo blog, and I have tried and tried to photograph the moon over the years with many kinds of cameras, and with no success at all.  Yet as if cosmic reinforcement might exist, on this day I am not only able to capture  a fine photograph of the moon for the very first time; but that the event coincided with the unusual occurrence of a Blue Moon on New Year's Eve makes it priceless.  {I am listening to the firecrackers and bottle rockets explode in the background as I type this... Alaskans aren't too big on restrictions or laws.  But then - it's hard to imagine one of those things actually starting a fire just now (my Weather Channel app says it's an even 0 (zero) degrees Fahrenheit; -3 degrees F with the windchill)}.  


Now, back to my beloved Blue Moon... this occurs when there happens to be more than the typical 12 full moons in a year, occurring about every 2 or 3 years.  To occur on a New Year's Eve is extra cool.  I might attempt to bore you with the details and science of a blue moon... but frankly I have absolutely no clue about it (other than what I just read on Wikipedia, and what my wife's amazing aunt J.R. told her over the phone). Yes, I have equally little knowledge in astronomy as I do in photography; yet here I type about both.  Alas... the nerve of it all.  


To end this inaugural post of the iPhone photo blog; I'll dedicate a song to the occasion (which I'll likely do every entry...)  And what could be more fitting than the sublime Ella Fitzgerald singing "Blue Moon" by Rodgers and Hart?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Until tomorrow... CCE

P.S. You'll note I successfully avoided writing that a blue moon occurs "once in a blue moon"... unless, of course, you count what I just typed as referencing the trite phrase, in which case that's just rude and nit-picky of you.

[Notes on the photograph:  taken 12.31.09 around 9 p.m. AKST on the iPhone 3G 2 megapixel camera, with slight sharpening and lightly enhanced contrast using the Photogene app on the iPhone. It was also cropped to square on Photogene.  (I won't ever use digital processing software that is not available as an iPhone app - that would defeat my purpose and quest in this blog!)  The pic took several hours to master; I had to balance the phone's camera lens over the 25 mm eyepiece of my son's 114GT NexStar reflecting telescope by Celestron, hold my breath, and hope.  Fractions of movements would send the moon flying off my screen.  For every decent pic I captured, there were a dozen discards.  I found it easiest to get the pic when I had the moon centered at about 2 o'clock in the eyepiece, but I don't know why.  It seemed reproducible, since I got better as the clock ticked on.]

Candle House Observatory, Anchorage, Alaska.  [This pic was also shot on the iPhone 3G camera.  What... you thought I went outside to get that pic of the moon?!]

Runner-up: Flag and Blue Moon

[This was shot from my front porch; and actually turned out better than the pics I got on the Canon Xsi.  Thankfully - the telescope shot actually worked and relegated this to "runner-up".]

Runner-up #2: Walking on the Moon

[I guess I thought these footprints in the snow on our walkway resembled footprints on the moon, or the surface of the moon itself?]