Moon's blurry perigee

There seemed to be a bit of a flurry on facebook last night over the incidence of the so-called super-moon, a natural phenomenon when the orbit of our terrestrial neighbour moved it closest to our planet. 

Let me repeat: this is a natural phenomenon but inorder to understand it, one must realise that the moon's orbit around our planet is not circular. It is elliptical which means that sometimes, the moon is farthest away from the earth (apogee) and sometimes, the moon is nearest to the earth's surface (perigee).

Well, this time on 23 Jun 2013, the moon happened to be skirting round nearest to us. When conditions are right - when moonrise is at night and moonset is in the morning, and also when the sky is clearest - we should be able to see the moon in its fullest glory. Unfortunately, with all the haze around us in the past week or so, the issue of whether or not we could see a clear moon became a matter of interest.

Some people in the country said that they saw a red moon which was not improbable because the dust particles in the air do contribute to light refraction and absorption. There were others who said that the moon was all blurry. We in the north could have been slightly luckier because there were photographers who managed to get pin-point sharp images.

As for me, my old Konica Minolta Dimage Z5 has never been able to give me a sharp resolution because it is such an old camera already. Even if I put it on a tripod, I can get anything better than a grainy image at the longest focal point. I thought the newer Fujifilm F500EXR would serve me better but I am also disappointed with it. Perhaps the only solution is to buy a third-party long telescopic lens with the biggest aperture to go with my son's Nikon D5100. But it has to be within budget too. However, all things considered, this is only wishful thinking because why should I get such a lens if I'm not going to use it for anything else? Must be practical with my expenditure.

Yesterday morning, I was woken up at about five o'clock by the bright moon shining through the window. The only thought that came to my mind was, gosh, what a bright moon. Not again! Then I turned over and went back to sleep.

This morning, it was almost six o'clock when I noticed the moon again. For the second time, it disturbed my sleep. But since it was almost time to get up anyway, I decided to grab both these two cameras - the Dimage and the Fujifilm - and tried to make do with the best of the situation. Unfortunately, with me holding the cameras without any support, almost all the images turned out blurry. This image below was the best I could get away with. Mind you, I've got better moon pictures elsewhere on this blog.