Moon over Washington calendar

[chris_newkumet]

Last fall I stumbled into a group of photographers setting up in the

Iowa Jima Memorial park in Arlington to take shots of the moonrise

over Washington. It was a great image and I'd like to go back to take

another shot at it. Can someone point me to reference material that

would give me specific dates and times for a full moon rising over

the monuments from that vantage point?

[chrisober]

http://aa.usno.navy.mil

 

Google is your friend.

[lester_laforce]

The monuments on the National Mall are lined up on an East/West axis. That is, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capital Dome are due East & West (90/180 compass degrees), the Washington Monument is just slightly south of this axis (the architect found unstable soil under its original planned placement). The Iowa Jima Monument is also on this axis.

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All of this means that when the sun or moon rise/set is also on a East/West axis, then all these features will line up. That occurs twice a year on the solar equinox. If you want a full moon, then you would look for the one occurring closest to the equinox. For example, the next one will be Sept 21, 2002.

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This moon/sun calendar I use is a shareware software product called <a href="http://www.iserv.net/~bsidell/moonrise.htm">Moonrise</a>.

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To get the best shot, just having all this information is not quite enough, the other piece of the puzzle is the color of the sky when you make your shot. The best shots have the monument and moon is ideal positions at the moment the color of the sky has achieved an optimum balance between daylight and night.

[ShunCheung]

Just would like to remind everybody that we are discussing very much a non-nature topic in this thread. However, since the issue of moon rise, etc. also apply to nature photography, at least I am not going to remove this thread.

 

But please keep in mind that this is the Nature Forum and we generally remove all non-nature threads.