{"id":37593,"date":"2025-09-23T00:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T00:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37593\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T00:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T00:27:10","slug":"photographers-capture-the-sun-and-moon-dancing-together-over-12-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37593\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographers Capture the Sun and Moon Dancing Together Over 12 Months"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>This slightly cropped version of the project shows the swing of the Sun and the Moon as they cross paths over the period of one year. Scroll down to see the full image. | Photo by Luca Vanzella and Alister Ling <\/p>\n

Today marks the autumnal equinox, the astronomical date when fall begins and summer ends. It\u2019s a special date for keen skywatchers, including Luca Vanzella and Alister Ling who recently completed an ambitious photographic project charting the swing of the Sun and the Moon over one year. <\/p>\n

For their project, Vanzella and Ling teamed up to capture 13 sunrises and 13 moonrises. Aside from being a fascinating photo project, the period that they shot it in \u2014 June 2024 to June 2025 \u2014 marked the major lunar standstill, an astronomical event that only occurs every 18.6 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sun and full Moon can be pictured as two children at the playground swinging back and forth in opposite directions; they are far apart at the solstices, and swoosh quickly past each other in the middle at the equinoxes,\u201d Ling tells PetaPixel over email. <\/p>\n

\u201cYet the Moon\u2019s arc is not a perfect mirror of the Sun\u2019s; it slowly changes from wider to narrower. It\u2019s easiest to see when you use freeze framing to compare them. 2025 was the year for the Moon\u2019s widest swing, known as the major lunar standstill.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Starting with June 2024 at the very top, each frame represents the moonrise and sunrise until June 2025. | Photo by Luca Vanzella and Alister Ling <\/p>\n

The pair shot the photos in Edmonton, Canada, selecting a spot that had plenty of open sky for the required 114-degree span of rise points. For camera equipment, the pair settled on a 10mm lens attached to Canon DSLR cameras and took two shots that could be stitched together to make a panorama. <\/p>\n

With two photographers working on the project, it meant that holidays and responsibilities could be covered so that no celestial events were missed. But there are certain elements that cannot be controlled, no matter how many photographers are working together. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe odds of clear skies in the mid-latitudes for 13 consecutive monthly sunrises and 13 moonrises are vanishingly small,\u201d the pair explains. \u201cDecades of experience confirm this. So we planned well ahead of time to capture very similar events (month and Moon position) which we could later use as proxies if the weather didn\u2019t cooperate.\u201d <\/p>\n

And the weather really didn\u2019t cooperate. Of the 13 moonrises, eight of them were clouded out<\/a>, and proxies had to be used. \u201cOf course, we also had to make some cosmetic cleanups, removing helicopter maneuvers, hot and dead pixels, and cloning out egregious construction floodlights that pulled attention away from the subject,\u201d they add. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Moonrises \"A<\/a>Sunrises <\/p>\n

But getting 26 clean shots of the sky in Canada is no easy task, and the aim was always to show celestial movements most people are unaware of. <\/p>\n

\u201cArt and science are intertwined in our lives as amateur astronomers; they inspired us to create this poster of the Moon and Sun\u2019s motions that is faithful to the skywatching experience while being educational,\u201d adds Vanzella and Ling. \u201cAs photographers, we loved the challenge of figuring out how to shoot the \u2018Major Lunar Standstill\u2019 and present it as a thought-provoking image.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>A failed moonrise shot because of clouds. \"A<\/a>A proxy stand in which shows exactly what it would have looked like had it been clear skies. <\/p>\n

Both Vanzella and Ling belong to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, and photography allows them to enjoy their hobby even more. You can follow them both on Flickr: Luca Vanzella<\/a> \u2013 Alister Ling.<\/a><\/p>\n

Image credits: Photographs by Luca Vanzella and Alister Ling<\/p>\n

Update 9\/22: Updated with YouTube video. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This slightly cropped version of the project shows the swing of the Sun and the Moon as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,4645,19043,501,156,34557,8036,34558,111,139,69,34559,34560,182,34561,34562],"class_list":{"0":"post-37593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-astronomy","13":"tag-astrophotography","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-equinox","17":"tag-moon","18":"tag-moonrise","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-solstice","23":"tag-summersolstice","24":"tag-sun","25":"tag-sunrise","26":"tag-wintersolstice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}