Supermoon & Pioneer Peak

I had checked “The Photographer’s Ephemeris” program a few days ago and knew exactly where the moon would rise and at what time. I also used the programs “Geodetic” feature to predict the apparent elevation of the moon in relation to the mountains, and found that the full moon should follow a path almost precisely parallel to the northeastern flank of Pioneer Peak. The Geodetic feature showed that it would maintain a fairly constant elevation clearance of this ridge from moonrise to when it would pass the peak, from 9:13 pm to roughly 10:56 pm. So I set out to attempt a series of photographs, 15 in total – 1 every 5 minutes (programmed by my Canon TC-80N3 remote timer). The composition would remain the same, as would the exposure – it would just record the moon’s path over the 75 minutes. After the series was taken (once the moon had moved well out of frame), I took one additional photograph exposing for the sky & mountain silhouette. When I got home, I merged all of the moon images together into one photograph using PS CS5, then merged them with the silhouette/mountain frame. The camera was not moved once throughout the nearly 2 hour sequence.

It was a really fun experiment and I’m happy with the results. For me, the moon seems to making a summit push on Pioneer Peak. I’d like to hear your thoughts!