Planes passing the moon

When I started playing around with these planes-on-the-Moon shots I had no idea how hard it would be to get that perfect shot. The planes flying north-south over Florida are 5 miles up moving very quickly. So, its all about position and timing. The shot above is one of the best from this evening's attempts. I would have liked it better if the plane were closer to Earth (and thus appeared larger).

The Moon is about 238,857 miles from Earth.



A lot of the shots turned out like the one above. With the plane too far in one direction or another to appear as if it were crossing the moon.



Above there was still too much daylight which made the plane bleed out. Further complicating my efforts are clouds and the fact that the Moon makes a complete orbit around the Earth every 27.3 days. That means the Moon rises a little more than an hour later every day. Tomorrow will be my last chance to get a few shots this cycle as it will rise long after dark for the remainder of its current cycle.



Above, I captured a sparrow (above the Moon) along with the plane and Moon.



Here I straightened the image with another sparrow in the shot. I prefer the off-kilter images.

The Moon is in synchronous rotation, which means it rotates about its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. This results in the Moon keeping nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times.

The side of the Moon that faces Earth is called the 'near side,' and the opposite side is the 'far side.'



Below: The diagram illustrates various phases of the Moon in their order of appearance starting from the New Moon and progressing through Crescent, First Quarter, and Gibbous to reach the Full Moon. It is followed by Gibbous, Last Quarter and Crescent to complete full circle at the New Moon again.