Big and Bright Wolf Full Moon Brightens Town of Aurora

I hope you enjoyed last night's full moon (Jan 29th, 2010) as much as I did. 350 pictures later, I finally figured out why I couldn't get the sharpness I used to achieve. The digital stabilizer on my Canon lens was causing me issues - a point to remember. However, even with a naked eye the moon was just spectacular and illuminated our street beautifully, too bad for the light posts being on.

The January Full Moon is called the Wolf Moon, as it also reminded me Michael Jackson's Thriller. Those good old scary memories of mine. The name Wolf Moon originated 100 years ago, from a legend about hungry wolf packs howling at the bright ball moon near the Native American villages. I tell you this is not much of a story too me, but hey the name had to come from somewhere.

The 2010 yesterday Wolf Moon appeared 14% wider and 30% brighter than a typical full moon. I actually watched the moon rising on the horizon, and it did look a bit disproportional, that is wider, still beautiful. I also watched my backyard for shadows on the snow, it was bright. The moon's orbit around the earth is 29.5 days and is an ellipse. One side of the orbit is always closer than the other because of the ellipse. During such orbit the moon reaches closest point to us that is called perigee. Once or twice a year the perigee coincides with a full moon and that's what happened yesterday that made the Wolf Moon brighter than any other full moon this year - it was closer to the Earth. Not to mention the sky was very cooperative, that is clear. Some clouds zoomed by at some point around 7 pm, and their brightness made them look rustic in color. Another nice moment to observe.

If you took your eyes from the full moon you probably noticed a shiny red star to the left of the moon. That wasn't just a star, it was Mars lined up with the full moon making its closest pass to the Earth this year.