Friday, June 22, 2007

The Moon and Venus...



June 18th 2007 I shot a picture late at night of the moon... It was close to 11pm and there was still quite a bit of light coming from the Northern horizon. I was actually testing my VR lens pushing it to extremes without a tripod and extreme high ASA sensitivity (guess around 3000). They weren't great pictures but I posted them on Flickr anyway, under the tag "moon". Long story short, few days later I get a Flickr mail telling me that someone had posted a comment on my picture. It was a person going with the "name "Sabinam" at Flickr who did exactly the same as I did... she shot the same picture from her window in Baku (Azerbaijan). I visited her Flickr site and in one of the comments about her moon shot a guy (by the Flickr name of Altamash) was claiming her shot was better than his... so I went to see his, of June 18th as well, from Karachi (Pakistan) this time... Click on each of these pictures to enlarge them. From left to right is mine, Sabinam's and Altamash's.

In case you wondered, the bright star located next to the moon is apparently Venus. I got no idea but I learned this from Altamash who is obviously more knowledgeable than me... Interesting to see the relative position of Venus vis-à-vis the moon that might be explained by the different longitude and time of capture... So, three people who never heard of each other before, of totally different race, sex, age and geographic location, came together thru Flickr via a shot of the moon and Venus... oh, the benefits of Internet and the global village!

Of all these shots, I really like a fourth one of a red moon, shown hereunder, shot on another night by my good friend and ex-colleague Nikos Yialelis. Decide for yourselves...


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