We had quite a dramatic Full Moon the other day. The moon seemed so big, much bigger than usual. Later-on I read that apparently this was the biggest and brightest Full Moon to be seen in 15 years. The moon circulates Earth not in a circular equidistance, but in an elliptical course with varying distances between the two.

The Royal Observatory in Greenwich tells us that the moon is, on average, 378,000 km away from the Earth’s surface. The night of last Friday, the moon was only 356,567 km away, apparently. That brought the moon 6 % closer to Earth than on average, making it at the same time 11 % brighter than usual.

I somehow never manage to get a satisfying photo of any moon constellation. Sorry about that. Instead, I offer you a shot of an equally spectacular cloud formation that we had on Thursday afternoon, in the lead-up to the Full Moon night on Friday.

The photo was taken near Felanitx, Mallorca, Spain. The date: December 12th, 2008. The time was 12:30:59.