Photographer Captures All Four Supermoons in 2023
A photographer has put together a stunning sequence of pictures after he captured all four supermoons in 2023.
Indian photographer Soumyadeep Mukherjee captured the Buck Moon on July 3, the Sturgeon Moon on August 1, the blue supermoon on August 30, and the Harvest Moon on September 29.
Mukherjee explains to PetaPixel that the images are part of an ongoing project that sees him shooting the full Moon every month.
“It is always special to photograph supermoons since they appear larger and brighter than other full moons,” he says.
“2023 has been an exciting year with four consecutive supermoons between July and September along with a super blue Moon in August.”
Mukherjee from Kolkata, India, captured all four supermoons from the same location on a Nikon D5600 with a Sigma 100-600 mm lens.
Each of his supermoon images is a composite of 200 stacked RAW photos that are cropped and centered via PIPP software.
“Then these images are stacked together in Autostakkert 3 software that produces a single stacked image. This stacked image is then processed in Photoshop to render the final image,” adds Mukherjee.
The astrophotographer says that cloud cover was a concern for the Sturgeon Moon and the recent Harvest Moon; he had to “wait for hours” on his terrace to get a small window to shoot both of them.
“With the extended monsoon in India, cloud cover has been a headache,” he explains. “Luckily, I got those small windows on both days and was able to shoot them.”
What is a Supermoon?
A supermoon is when the Moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit and it is also a full Moon.
When the Moon’s orbit brings it closest to Earth, it is known as a “perigee.” Perigree full Moons are subtly brighter and larger than a regular full Moon, thus the nickname: supermoon.
The blue supermoon on August 30 was particularly special because it was the second full Moon to occur within a calendar month: this is what makes it “blue”. But it was also a supermoon as it came when Earth’s lunar satellite was 18,000 miles closer than usual. The last blue supermoon was in 2009 and the next one won’t be until 2037.
More of Mukherjee’s work can be found on his Instagram.
Image credits: All photos by Soumyadeep Mukherjee.
