Perigee Moon

2012 Perigee Moon

The largest full moon of the year (or supermoon!) occurred over this past weekend. I was hoping to catch it just as it appeared above the horizon, because that is when it is most distorted by the atmosphere and appears the largest. But the mountains near my house made that all but impossible. It was much prettier (and appeared larger) in real life than in the photo I am posting, but at least you can get a feel for the brightness of it. It shone enough to cast a fragile shadow on the ground. Also out and about in the sky were Venus, Mars, and Saturn. The stars were mostly drown out by the moon, but the planets were bright enough, so it was a good weekend for "solar system" gazing;)
The BF's niece spent the night with me, just to hang out. She is 11. She invented a new flavor of ice cream called "Rainbow Nerd-Lemon" ice cream, and we looked up interesting facts about the planets we were seeing outside (like did you know a year on Mercury is only 88 days long?), and fell asleep watching Horton Hears a Who. It was fun sleep over.

When kids invent ice cream flavors;)

As a side note, I photographed a really big full moon last year on my iPhone while riding in my car and posted a photo of it. I didn't know it then, but I had caught the Perigee moon of 2011!