This year’s supermoon coincided with a trip to Yosemite. Obviously I couldn’t leave my favorite park without trying to capture this event.

You might ask, “what is a supermoon”? The distance between the earth and the moon varies over the year. When the full moon is the closest to earth, the moon appears bigger and brighter. This is called supermoon or perigee moon. This year, the supermoon is about 12% bigger than the smallest moon (apogee moon).

Instead of a moon rise, I tried to capture the setting moon over Tenaya Lake. The orientation of the lake was perfectly aligned with the moon’s path. It was tough to get up in the middle of the night, but when I arrived at Tenaya Lake, the view was breathtaking. A small fog bank was moving over the lake and adding some mystic feel.

The weather forecast called for a cloudy day. Indeed, the clouds moved in later on, but the early morning was very calm and no cloud obstructed the moon.

Here is a close-up of the moon over the ridge behind Tenaya Lake.

It has been a total of nine minutes between the first image and the last one, where the moon sets behind the ridge. When the moon is up in the sky, it doesn’t look like the moon moves much, but when you see it behind an object, it is amazing how fast he is!