Supermoon Rising

As seen on the National Geographic News, partly obscured by clouds, the moon rises over Veszprem, Hungary, as seen in a multi-exposure image. Due to the moon’s egg-shaped orbit, our natural satellite is at perigee —its closest approach to Earth— about once a month. The term “supermoon” was coined in 1979 to describe a full moon that coincides with perigee. The photographed full moon of 2012 May 5 was the largest of the year. However as the word supermoon might resemble, the angular size of the moon does not change that much, not noticable to inexperienced eyes at all. Supermoons are just slightly larger in apparent size. © Tamas Ladanyi