This photo was taken by Claudia Hinz at the evening of Jan. 11th, 19.35 CET from Mt. Wendelstein (1838m), Southern Germany. The full Moon in this night was extra bright. Dr. Elmar Schmidt of the SRH University of Applied Sciences in Heidelberg, Germany, used an absolutely-calibrated photometer to precisely measure the moonlight and found it more than 50% brighter than that of a typical full Moon.1. The Moon was at perigee, the side of the Moon's elliptical orbit closest to Earth.
2. The Earth-Moon system was near perihelion, the side of Earth's elliptical orbit closest to the sun. Extra sunlight increased the reflected luminosity of the Moon.
3. The Sun-Earth-Moon trio were almost perfectly aligned. This triggered a strong opposition effect an intense brightening of the lunar surface caused by the temporary elimination of normal shadows.
4. The weather conditions were optimal for photometry due to the clean and dry arctic air (its relative humidity being less than 10% at the moment of the photo). This resulted in only clear air scattering of moonlight with no extraneous glare as evident in the completely blue night sky. The brightness of the mountain landscape was additionally increased because of the reflection from the snow.
Elmar Schmidt details the relative contributions of each factor in his full report.
Text: Elmar Schmidt & Claudia Hinz
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