Super Moon March 19, 2011

Yesterday, the full moon was the brightest its been in almost 18 years. That's because it was the closest it's been to the earth in that amount of time. Dubbed the "Super Moon", and not expected to happen for another 18 or so years, it was something to behold.

We were blessed here in southeast Florida to have a cloudless sky, so I was able to capture it in all its glory. I wasn't set up in time to photograph it as it poked above the horizon in a blaze of bright orange color, but I did get some decent pics of what looked like an ever changing bowling ball in the sky. The golden yellowish orange colors came first and it evolved into a brilliant, bright white orb.

Unfortunately, I don't have a super telephoto lens, so I had to make do with my Canon EF-S 55-250 mm lens, and my tripod, although there was not much distinction, if any, between the tripod shots and the handheld ones.

I set it to manual and daylight for the whole shoot, but towards the end when it was plain white, I used a flash. I kept the ISO at 100 to 200. F8 to F11. 1/125 to 1/250. I bracketed some at the beginning, and then stopped.

These are cropped, big time, with some minimal tweaking in Photoshop.

Up Close And Personal : John Beatty Capturing The Volcanic Eruption In Iceland In Photos

Sometimes the best photographs are a matter of being at the right place at the right time. That's why so many photographers take their cameras wherever they go. I grab my bag with my DSLR, a bunch of lenses, and my digital 'point and shoot' whenever I leave the house. There have been far too many times when I have not had my camera and missed some incredible photo ops. So now, they go with me wherever I go, even if it's to the local Whole Foods. You never know what could be around the bend.

John Beatty, a British freelance photographer just so happened to be in Iceland for a shoot for an outdoor clothing company when he witnessed the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull (Island-Mountain-Glacier). Camped right on the glacier, he was up-close-and-personal enough to capture some amazing photos of the spectacular eruption. I think a little too close for my tastes, considering the danger, but he is obviously fine and the better for having taken these incredible photos.

Amateur Shoots Amazing Photos Of The Night Skies With His Telescope

Peter Shah is an office worker in England who fell in love with the night skies ever since his mum purchased him a £5 telescope when he was a young lad. For £20,000 he equipped and set up a makeshift observatory in his garden shed. Some of the photos he took, over the period of several months, are quite astonishing for an 'amateur star gazer'. In fact, his photographs of the milky way, and nebulas and galaxies have been compared to the ones taken by the multi-million

dollar Hubble telescope. £20,000 is an expensive hobby, but he enjoys it. Some people have their telescopes other their cameras.

Click here to see more. The above photo is of the Monkey's Head Nebula.