Astroblog: March 21 Perigee Moon, 2019

Sunday, March 24, 2019

March 21 Perigee Moon, 2019


Perigee (super) Moon of 21 March 2019. 25 mm eyepiece with Sony Xperia mobile phone ASA 1600 1/4000 sec exposure. 4" Newtonian. Scaled full frame image. Click to embiggen.	Perigee (super) Moon of 20 February 2019 2019. 25 mm eyepiece with Sony Xepria mobile phone 2 x Zoom, ASA 400 1/4000 sec exposure. 4" Newtonian. Scaled full frame image. Click to embiggen.

Comparison of the 21 March 2019 perigee "super" Moon (bottom) with the apogee "Mini Moon" on the night of Total Lunar Eclipse of 28 July, 4:25 am. Sony Xepria 1/2000th sec exposure ASA 400. Note the minimal (but still obvious) difference in size between the two (same image scale and zoom factor) compared to the 20 February image. Click to embiggen.	Comparison of the 21 March perigee Full Moon (bottom) with the 20 March Moon, this was closer to perigee by about 24 hours but one day before full.. Sony Xepria 1/4000th sec exposure ASA 1600. Note the clear difference in size between the two (same image scale and zoom factor) compared to the 21 March image.

Comparison of the 20 February perigee "super" Moon (bottom) with the apogee "Mini Moon" on the night of Total Lunar Eclipse of 28 July, 4:25 am. Sony Xepria 1/2000th sec exposure ASA 400. Note the clear difference in size between the two (same image scale and zoom factor).	Comparison of the stellarium simulation of 20 February perigee "super" Moon (bottom) with the apogee "Mini Moon" on the night of Total Lunar Eclipse of 28 July, 4:25 am. Same image scale and zoom factor. The agreement between predicted and observed is quite good given the limitations in manually aligning the files.

I know you have been hanging out for this, so here are my shots of the almost perigee (sort of "super") moon of 21 March, and compared them to the shots from the 20 February perigee Moon. There is a subtle difference between the 21 March and the 28 July apogee Moon of 2018, unlike the more obvious difference between 20 February. and 28 July. You can see the comparison with the 21 January preigee Moon here.

The 20 February Full Moon was 6 hours from perigee, while the March 21 one was 29 hours from perigee (an the 21 January one 14 hours from Perigee). I also have included a comparison between 20 March (1 day before full Moon and closer to perigee) and the 21st March full Moon.

I have also included a comparison between the 20February 28 July perigee/apogee pair and the stellarium prediction.

Now to wait for the September 13 Apogee Moon.

Labels: apogee, astrophotography, Moon, perigee