While Southeast Asia and the world are preoccupied with earthly matters of a viral nature, the moon is giving a free show tonight. Our sole satellite will be looming large as it goes “Super Pink Moon” in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
It’s a combination of April’s full moon – dubbed “Pink” – and the closest point all year it will come to the Earth. Their orbits will bring the two to their closest points at around 6:08GMT, which will be 2:08am on Thursday in Singapore, Manila, and Hong Kong; and 1:08am in Thailand and Jakarta, according to Space.com. At their closest, the two bodies will be about 357,000 kilometers apart.
That’s about 50,000 kilometers closer than when they are furthest apart, called the apogee. Truth be told, the moon appears only modestly larger.
Moon gazers in Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines have already captured the larger-than-usual moon’s rise into the sky last night and the wee hours of this morning, posting photos to social media.
Here are some of them, including details of the cameras used to capture them:
Facebook user Enrico Bobier from the Philippines posted a great shot of the moon around 5am today using his Nikon D5600 camera.
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Super Pink Manok Moon! #SuperPinkMoonChallenge #FujifilmPHFeatures XT-20 | XC 50-230mm
Also from the Philippines is Instagram user @Notcedierking, who posted a moon pic with a silhouette of a rooster last night. The photo was taken from the Camarines Sur province using a Fujifilm camera.
#supermoon in Depok, Indonesia. 8th of April 2020.
Left were taken using Nikon D610 + Nikkor 85mm F1.8. ISO 100, SS400, F11
Right were taken using Galaxy Note 9 Pro Camera + mini binocular. pic.twitter.com/c5MgSyRUpb— Dimdan (@dimdan12) April 7, 2020
In Indonesia, Twitter user @dindan12 tweeted photos he had captured of the moon after midnight from the West Java town of Depok. He used a Nikon D610 for one photo and a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Pro with mini binoculars for the other.
Instagram user @Dhaniearie took an incredible shot of the moon from Bali early this morning using a Fujifilm camera.
“My other #stayhome project. Yayyy it’s a full moon now,” the caption read.
In Singapore, moon gazers filled the Nature Society Facebook group with photos of the moon last night.
“Tonight’s moon before the rain,” William Ng’s caption read.
Another Nature Society member Adeline Goh shared multiple photos of the moon taken at different times and places in Singapore.
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