Shown above is an image of last year’s Supermoon taken through afocal method with a 6-in reflector and a mobile phone camera. Photo Credit: Cristina Flores
This month’s full moon is the largest full moon of the year! :)
What Time to Observe
There is much confusion on the Internet as to what time this “Super Moon” thing would occur. According to a lunar calculator from the NASA website, the “Full Moon” should occur on May 6, 3:36 am Universal Time, this Sunday. In local time (Philippines), there would be an additional 8 hours due to the differences in time zones, thus, in the Philippines, the precise moment will occur at “2012 May 6 3:36 UT” + “8 hours” = 11:36 am May 6 (near noontime). Unfortunately, 11:30 am is a daytime here in the Philippines, thus, the moon will not be visible. To be able to observe it, either you observe tonight, just a few hours before sunrise, or later tomorrow, a few hours right after sunset.
To calculate for your local time, just add or subtract the correct time difference. In the given example, I used +8. Just substitute it and do the math :) Hope it answers some of the confusion.
