Situation:
We have imagined a photo or we have seen something that we want to do ourselves from a moon rise over some pieces of ice on Jökursárlón beach in Iceland and the moon rising between some sea stack that are on the coast.
Will try to get the nearest date to the 15th of February, 2021, that happens our imagined photo.
How are we going to do that?
The first thing we have to do is to find our destination on the map.
We can do manually finding on the map if we know the place or if not, using the search box. Clicking in the box or using Ctrl + F shortcut will focus and start writing the place name. Remember that we should try not to misspell the name (in this case, not using diacritic characters in the name shouldn’t be of any problem, but in some other cases maybe could return misplaced destinations or even not find a valid place).
To finish writing the name, press return key and as it can be seen on the screenshot below, the search box returns one result. Clicking on it, the map will be centered on the destination with the black pin placed already.
Then we select the date for our moonrise clicking on the date, so the calendar is visible.
We could start selecting 15th of February, 2021. Double click to select the desired date.
In the image we can see the result of the assistant for the location and dates we have chosen.
In the center of the map screen we have a black pin (user or camera location), a series of lines that leave it in different directions and of different colors. At the top of the map data relating to the sun, moon, GC, … and to the right a table of events of the day, in this case relative to the moon.
Let’s work only with the moon; we don’t need the lines of the sun (the orange and the red ones). For that, double-click on the image of the moon.
Let’s go back to the question of what phase we’re going to have, when it comes out and where.
To know where it comes from we have to look at it on the map around the black pin. The bluish lines are related to the moon, and the yellow-orange-red lines are related to the sun. Light-colored ones will always be rising direction and dark ones of the same tone will be the setting direction. The clear blue line going east-southeast is that of the moon’s exit (the one we are interested in); in that direction comes out by that date. We can zoom and move on the map to see it both from further and closer.
If we pass the mouse pointer over the lines, it will tell us which event and astro belongs to.
As we said the light blue line is moon-out, and the dark blue for the moon sunset. Orange for sunrise and red for sunset. The yellow thin line belongs to the current position of the sun, at the time we are in the assistant. There will also be for the moon, but as it is hidden at that moment the line is not shown.
Rising time it is visible in the event table, indicating that it happens at 10:09
In that table you can see all the events for the date and when each one occurs, both for the moon, the sun and relative to the GC.
They can also be filtered to show us only one astro, the moon in this case.
The phase in which it is located is indicated in the information that is right at the top of the map, which is waxing crescent and 13.3% illumination.
Ok. But still we don’t know if the moon rises near the sea stacks. For that, we zoom out the map so we can see a wider preview, by using the scroll wheel of the mouse over the map or by clicking on the (-) button at the right of the map (see mark).
As we can see, the moon rises near the sea stack (circled in orange), and by moving a little bit to the south should be enough. Or, we could check another date.
We check the next day (16th of February), by selecting on the calendar or by clicking once on the button right to the date (see below).
As we can see, the rising directions goes too far from our desired plan, so it’s not a valid date. Let’s check the day before to 15th of February. Why? Because if selecting the next day the rising directions goes northward, the day before should go southward.
Now, we’re at 14th of February (squared in orange) and the moonrise direction has changed southward as expected and, most important, now it rises exactly between the sea stacks. Rising time has change a little bit, but still at the golden hour, a good light to take a photo with the landscape and the moon both correctly exposed.