Full Supermoon but not 100% full !

It's full moon today and this morning there are no clouds. So perfect time to make some pictures. It's also the third time this year (Oct, Nov) we can observe a supermoon. Also special today is that the moon is not exactly 100% full. This because the moon is not exactly in front of the sun. You can see this at the picture as some craters are still visible.

One day before full moon

With 98% illumination, the moon is almost 24h away from being "full". Below picture was taken with ISO100 and 1/160s shutterspeed.

Moon - 94%

The entire day was covered with clouds but luckely just before midnight this changed. For half a hour clouds pulled away with almost a clear sky. The moon is illuminated for 94% and thus much brighter then a couple of days ago. I changed settings from ISO200 to ISO100 and kept shutterspeed the same. As the moon is now "bigger" and not fitting into the sensor image, the picture is a composition of two photo's. This was done using CS4.

Moon 76% - Details up to 6km

Even the fact the sky is covered with high clouds, temperature is about 5°C and 100% humidity, the moon is coming through. Even more, details could be observed beyond 6km in diameter.
Currently the moon is illuminated for 76%.

Moon 65% - Copernicus Crater

Some hours without clouds and this plenty of time to observe the moon. The moon is 65% illuminated and in the center it's easy to recognize Copernicus Crater (93km). I made some more pictures using my zoom 8-24mm and installed my camera afocal. 

Low in the south you can also seen Clavius Crater (245km).

Messier Objects - 65% completed

Over the last years I observed 71 out of 110 Messier Objects.  With 65% completed, I still do miss 39 Messier Objects.  I will try to observe those within the next  months/year before taking a new challenge like the Herschel 400. Of which by the way I observed 13/400 :)

Virgo and Sagitarius will be the biggest challenge, so focus as from January onwards. 

Lunar Halo

Weather is not good to do any observations this evening due to high clouds. But because of those high clouds I could observe below lunar halo. Almost a perfect circle of 22° around the moon. This phenomen is also called a winter halo, moon ring or moon halo.