Looking for the Harvest Moon

October 11th, 2012
by Sam Levy

On the night of September 29 to 30, New York was illuminated by the Harvest Moon which is the name for the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. At that time, the moon is bright, huge and full-looking for several nights depending on how far North you watch. In the Northern states, the Harvest Moon will continue to shine until the beginning of October (http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/harvest-moon-2)

Harriet asked citifari a unique request: a photo tour to capture the Harvest Moon. Native from Texas, Harriet would travel to NYC just to capture that moon. She has been dreaming of that shot all of her life. At citifari, we like new challenges, we wanted to unique on Saturday evening. We met Harriett and her friend for a downtown walk chasing the moon. As the moon rises east, we started from the piers, then we went to the Brooklyn Bridge and we finished our special tour with capturing the moon over the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The exercise was not easy. As the moon was rising up over the buildings; we had to be at the right place at the right time! We spent a lot of time discussing about the itinerary. What was the best place to photograph the Harvest Moon? At what time was the moon at its zenith? Through our calculations, we also noticed that the moon could be perfectly aligned with the Brooklyn Bridge.

Even if the sky was overcast on September 29th, Jean-François, the guide for the evening taught the group how to take great pictures of the cloudy sky.
Strong of these explanations Harriet and her friend came back the next evening to finally capture the moon ex-clouds!
We thank Jean-François for his precious advices and Harriet for proposing the Harvest Moon Photo Tour. For sure we will be there next year to cover this great event!