Capturing a 'super' moon

The May 7 full moon was the final supermoon of 2020. Cloquet photographer and retired doctor Dana Malkovich shared this photo he took of a 98.5 percent full moon at 5:14 a.m. May 6, looking east as it ascended above the trees lining the St. Louis River in Jay Cooke State Park.

"Supermoon" is not a scientific word, Malkovich said. "It is an astrological term applying to the full moon when it nears its perigee, the point when the moon is closest to earth in its elliptical orbit. At that point the moon looks slightly larger, maybe 15 percent, than what we typically see."

He said he used a prolonged exposure of 25 seconds to create the photograph about a half-hour before sunrise that day. "The prolonged exposure creates a dreamy quality by smoothing the surface of the river while retaining the sense of languorous movement seen in the current's swirls and eddies," Malkovich wrote. "The rocks projecting above the surface of this part of the river seem to be out of place in this scene, and contribute to the sense of otherworldliness."

"Because of an optical illusion, the moon appears larger when it is near the horizon than when overhead. In addition, light traveling from the moon when it is near the horizon travels through a thicker layer of atmosphere, scattering the cold colors, blue, green and purple, and leaving the warmer red, yellow and orange frequencies. That's why the moon looks orange. This contrasts nicely with the predominant blue color, considered complementary to orange, seen predominantly at this time of the morning. The prolonged exposure also accentuates the reflection of the moon in the water, seen here as a long path that leads you into the picture."