Perigee Moon 12 12 08

Here is my shot of tonights moon. ..I walked out the gallery door at about 5:15 and said holy wow! It was rising from the east over a peak of trees. Had to run back in and grab the camera. I was not really prepared for this. I had to work very quickly to capture some of the trees in the forground in order to give it a sense of scale. No time to make adjustments other than exposure. It was cold and my legs were shaking the boardwalk on which the tripod was set up on. With this kind of magnifcation vibrations were picked up by the lens. That coupled with the extended exposure time keep it from being as sharp as I would like it. Later on a friend called and told me that it was a special moon, here's why...

Tonight it was closer to Earth than it's been since 1993 - 221,560 miles away, making it look 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than 2008's other full moons.
"Typically we don't have the full moon phase and perigee (the position of an object at its least distance from Earth), coinciding at the same time, so that makes this event particularly special," said Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California...

"While high tides happen each month when the sun, Earth, and the moon are aligned, there is going to be an enhanced effect, with the moon being the closest it's been in more than a decade," said Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California.
(info courtesy of: boingboing.net)

I'm going to try to be set up to capture a better shot tomorrow night. It won't be the "perigee" moon, but hey it'll be the next best thing to it for a long time to come.