Analemma of the Moon

If we observe the Sun the from day to day the same time (e.g.: 8 AM. or at noon or 4 PM.) we may spot it nearly the same direction. However its position in Winter is lower in the sky, in Summer it’s higher and there are some periodic movements towards West and East because the Earth is orbiting around the Sun in elliptical orbit. If we capture the phenomena and overlay these photos, our Sun slowly draws the famous Celestial Number Eight in a year. The recent years analemma photo projects have become very popular amongst amateur astronomers and photographers, there are completed photos published almost every months including analemma-curves behind wonderful foregrounds. Our Moon needs days (24 hours 50 minutes 29 seconds) in average to reach the same point in the sky to consecutive times. We might say this is the length of the “Moon-day“. In case the weather and the clouds allow and we photograph the Moon 50 minutes and 29 seconds later on successive days, we may capture an analemma-like curve in 27 days. But (unlike the Sun’s analemma) this is an open curve that looks different from month to month. Capturing Lunar analemmas is still in its infancy: only three photos have been published so far (the third one was taken by myself in 2014). Due to the quarantine of the actual COVID-19 epidemic and to the promising weather forecasts let me try to take a new Lunar analemma photo. The small meadow 400 meters away from my home near Mogyoród, Hungary have an excellent outlook towards Southwestern direction with the lights of Mogyoród and the M3 highway in the foreground and with the lights of Budapest in the distance. From 26th of March to 18th of April I walked here daily and captured the Moon (except one rainy and cloudy morning) and overlaid these Lunar crescents and disks to the background photo taken on 27th of March. I also made a short Youtube video -- the first “real“ YT video of my life.. :) It may be quite lame but I think it’s very informative and may inspire others to photograph this beautiful celestial phenomena. Just remember: all Solar analemmas look like the same but all Lunar analemmas would be different and unique.. ;-) . - . Mogyoród Canon EOS 5D Mark II Samyang 24/1.4 Tamron EF 150/600 @ 600mm