Perseid Meteor Shower, Supermoon, and Sunsets

Waxing Gibbous Moon

Be ready for a interesting evening and night time event this weekend.  On Sunday, August 10, 2014 though be the closest and largest full moon of the year.  The moon will rise at 7:34 PM and set at 6:52 AM, at my location.  There are many apps or websites to give you the exact time for your location.  It'll be a great time to get out and get pictures of the moon set against a background.  Also, the Perseid meteor shower will be starting to peak from August 11-13.  Normally, the bright moon changes the background of the sky from black to a much brighter sky, which makes it harder to see meteors.  However, there is one good caveat, the Perseid meteors have the largest number of fireballs of any meteor shower.  Because of this occurrence this could be an extremely beautiful event.  Imagine seeing a fireball in the light of the bright supermoon.

I will be out photographing moonrise and sunset on August 10, then go home and rest to return to my favorite spot after midnight to see if I can capture some fireballs.

Last evening, I went down to battleship Cove in Fall River to photograph the sunset.  Although I knew approximately with the sunset was going to happen, I utilize my iPad with PhotoPills and its augmented reality, which showed me exactly the location where the sun would set.  Besides the sunset, looking behind me was a 94% waxing gibbous moon shining over the hills of Fall River.

Harbor master boat meeting, fire Dept. boat at battleship Cove

The image below was from three photos that I blended together in Photomatix

Sunset at battleship Cove

The image below was from three photos that I blended together in NIK HDR Pro

Sunset at battleship Cove

Sunset at battleship Cove as a Silhouette

Although there are two's separate set of images that I post processed in Photomatics and NIK HDR Pro, personally, I like the one that was processed in Photomatics.  I also utilized Topaz Clarity And Detail to finish up the processing of all these photos.


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Sunrise, Sunset

From Fiddler on the Roof, Sunrise, Sunset.  My son said to me, since we did the sunrise, as I wrote in the previous blog, where should we go to do the sunset?  I took the The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE) and looked up various locations near us.  And after looking at a number of them, I decided that we would go to Fall River down by Battleship Cove to photograph the sunset, since the sun would set behind the battleship, USS Massachusetts and the Braga Bridge.  We parked at Heritage Park and found a nice spot to set up to give us a good view of the battleship  and the bridge.  There was clouds moving through passing over our subjects.  As this sun sank lower in the sky, we did have some nice light.  After sunset, the wind changed and the clouds started moving away from the subjects, and we ended up with mainly a clear blue sky and none of the great light that you can get after sunset.

Chasing The Supermoon

Supermoon

First, what is a Supermoon.  The definition of a Supermoon only has to be a new of full moon.  "At or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth".  This year there will be actually five Supermoons: three full moons (May, June, and July), and two new moons (January and December).  The moon's closest approach to Earth is called the perigee and the June 23 moon is the closest approach this year.  By the way, " The term Supermoon doesn’t come from astronomy. It’s comes from astrology."

Here is the story of my chasing the Supermoon.  On Saturday afternoon, I was up on the North Shore of Massachusetts and after checking the weather forecast and wanting to have an interesting foreground for the moon, I decided to travel to York, Maine, and use Cape Neddick Light as my foreground.  The weather was only post be partly cloudy, which would make for some interesting photographs.  However, at the time of moonrise, the sky was completely cloudy and the moon could be seen, disappointing large number of onlookers that came to visualize the event.  About 45 minutes after moonrise, there was a little break in the clouds and I was able to capture this picture.

Supermoon and Cape Neddick Light

What I really want to get was this picture, which is a composite of two pictures.

Supermoon and Cape Neddick Light - My Dream

We started driving home, and on the way on Interstate 95, the skies cleared and it was a beautiful bright orange moon in the sky.  Oh well, we missed it, but the 23rd was supposed to be the actual Supermoon, so will try again.

On the 23rd, I decided that we would go to Gooseberry Neck in Westport, Massachusetts, since we could capture the moonrise in the East and the sunset in the West.  When we started out the skies at home were clear with fluffy clouds, but the closer we got to the ocean near Gooseberry, the temperature dropped and there was fog everywhere.  We reached Gooseberry, with a wind was blowing.  We tried some interesting photos of the grasses and flowers blowing in the wind and waited, hoping that the fog would lift.  No, the fog did not lift, we also want to get photographs, so we headed back toward home and when we reached the beginning of route 24 N. the moon was starting to show over North Wattupa Pond.  I knew where the Causeway across North Wattupa Pond.  So we went there and join some of the people were watching the Supermoon.  So we got our photographs of the Supermoon.

Supermoon and Clouds - North Wattupa Pond

Fish-eye View

Fish-eye View

Photographing the Supermoon

Of course in July still be another Supermoon on the 22nd and will try again to hopefully capture the moon at moonrise.  Also, I want to remind people that on the early morning of July 28 and 29th Southern Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower occur and I will be hosting another event at the Stone Barn at Allens Pond Audubon Sanctuary.  More information will follow later.

Fall River Heritage State Park and Battleship Cove

This blog is different than my usual blog.  It is not about the natural area around us and the creatures that inhabited, but about an interesting location to go and visit.  It is the Fall River Heritage State Park, which is on the shoreline of the Taunton River in Fall River, Massachusetts.  Surrounding this 8 1/2 acre park Is Battleship Cove, which is the largest collection of decommissioned warships in the world.  The center of battleship Cove is the battleship USS Massachusetts. 

It also includes the USS Joseph P.  Kennedy, Junior.,  USS Lionfish, PT Boats, USS Fall River and the Hiddensee.
There is also a restored 1920s carousel from the, Lincoln Park amusement park.
We arrive prior to sunset, noting that there were clouds in the sky and hoping for a colorful sunset.  However, no colorful sunset, but was able to obtain multiple pictures of the area.  Most of my pictures were 3 picture bracket's and and I edit the pictures, utilizing NIK software, mainly HDR Efex Pro, color Efex Pro 4, VIVEZA and  also used Topaz software Star Effects.  The main post processing was performed in Light Room 4.