Jeff Camp in Omaha, Nebraska caught the rising supermoon on November 14, 2016.
The instant of full moon fell on Monday, November 14, 2016 in the morning hours before sunrise in western North America and on many Pacific islands, east of the International Date Line. In Asia and Australia, the moon turned precisely full during the evening hours of November 14. In New Zealand, still recovering from yesterday’s major earthquake, it came after midnight November 15. For all of us, the moon has seen shining from dusk until nearly dawn these past few nights.
Did you know a supermoon doesn’t really appear larger to the eye? Well, it doesn’t unless you’re seeing a moon illusion, an effect that occurs with any full moon when seen near a horizon. A supermoon is at its closest to Earth and therefore larger in fact; but, unless you are a very experienced observer, your eyes probably can’t didn’t detect a size difference between a supermoon high in your sky and any ordinary full moon.
But all of us could see that the supermoon was very bright! In fact, they’re some 30% brighter than a full moon at its farthest from Earth.
Supermoon and friend Sunday evening, by Roxana Soetebeer in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada.Fly me to the moon! We see many photos of airplanes in front of the moon, but this is a particularly nice one, featuring the November 14 supermoon, from Kunal Patel in India.Jan Haines Ricco in Michigan caught the supermoon on November 13. She wrote: “I would hold my Mother’s hand and tell her to look up at the moon when she was lonely. We both see and share the same moon together.”Josephine Sane in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada caught the supermoon on November 13, 2016, over a recently harvested grain field by her home.Will Saunders caught the moonset – at nearly the crest of the moon’s full phase – on the morning of November 14 from Monument Valley, on the Utah-Arizona border.Supermoon on the rise on November 14 via John Solvie in Las Vegas, Nevada.Sunday’s supermoon over Aimilianos Gkekas at Meteora, Kalampaka, Greece.Rod Cerkoney in Fort Collins, Colorado caught the November 13 supermoon. He wrote: “Approximately 99.5% illuminated supermoon backdropped by Earth’s shadow.”Jesse Thornton caught this peaceful scene with the moon, a flock of birds and Earth’s shadow at the marsh of Green Bottom, West Virginia on November 13.How cool is this? The top image shows a ray of moonlight from Sunday’s supermoon, just before rising above the mountains near Tucson, Arizona. Photo via Earthsky friend and Flickr user Eliot Herman.Sheryl R. Garrison in Idaho caught the November 14 supermoon. She wrote: “I’ve caught lunar halos before but tonight was a first for me to catch one with an arc … The arc didn’t last for long, just enough time for me to grab the tripod.” Sheryl later said Les Cowley of the great website Atmospheric Optics described her photo as a special type of lunar halo, called a circumscribed halo.Roberto Porto, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, wrote on November 14: “The supermoon, dressed with a super corona, tonight from Tenerife. Small drops of water in high clouds, produce these concentric rings with vivid colours around the supermoon.” Click here to read about lunar coronae.Prabhakaran A in India caught the waxing supermoon on Sunday.Rob Pettengill in Austin, Texas captured Sunday evening’s rising, waxing supermoon.Hope Carter wrote: “I’m sure you all are getting flooded with supermoon images, and how wonderful is that!!! Here is another from last night, caught in a nearby swamp … loved the magical reflections and mystery of it all.”Supermoon setting over Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Monday morning, November 14, 2016. Photo by Quinten Questel.Timothy Wenzel caught the supermoon rising over Saginaw Bay as seen from Linwood Michigan on November 13. This is a 5-shot composite taken with a 400 mm lens pointed at the same spot on the horizon throughout the approximately 5 minute event.Bright supermoon Sunday evening over the Upper East Side of New York City, as seen from Central Park, by Chirag Upreti. “The weather was clear and the golden yellow moonrise was just a fantastic event to witness.”Sunday evening’s rising supermoon over the San Francisco Bay Bridge by Fran Heller.Henrique Feliciano Photography caught the rising supermoon Sunday evening over Lisbon, Portugal.Bruce Emerton wrote; “I hiked to the top of the hill behind my house in Morongo Valley, California, the new Sand to Snow National Monument. The sun was setting to the west and at almost the same time the moon was rising in the east. I was at about 3,500 ft of elevation. I was by myself and took a few selfies.”Jerry Elbertson in New Jersey caught Sunday evening’s waxing supermoon moon as it was rising.Almost a supermoon, a waxing gibbous moon, rising Saturday evening over La Paz, Boliva. Photo by Max Glaser.Waxing gibbous moon on November 12, 2016 by OMladyO in Switzerland.Waxing Gibbous (91.7%) moon on November 12, 2016, rising from behind Freedom Tower, seen from Jersey City, New Jersey. Composite image shot at intervals of 3 minutes by Gowrishankar Lakshminarayanan.November 11, 2016 moon rising over Lake Ontario in a pastel sky. Port Credit, Mississauga, Ontario Canada via our friend Lunar 101 – Moon Book.Rising moon on November 11, 2016 by Kathy Ax.
Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. In 2020, she was the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, the largest organization of professional astronomers in North America. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.
Like what you read? Subscribe and receive daily news delivered to your inbox.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
