Offaly photographer captures stunning images of full moon
AWARD winning Offaly photographer Tom O'Hanlon shrugged off all the dire warnings about the impact of Storm Dudley on Wednesday evening in his quest to snap a unique full moon shot.
The Rahan man decided recently he wished to capture the moon rising on the horizon behind one of the county's most impressive landmarks, the Mullagh Tower folly in Killurin.
Speaking to the Tribune on the side of a boreen off the Killurin-Killeigh road as darkness was falling, Tom admitted: “It was touch and go with the storm coming in.”
“I looked at the weather apps and there was going to be a clearing at 6pm and at 5.30pm I was here in the absolute spills of rain.
“And it just cleared just in time, just enough. I could just see that little kiss of the moon coming up.”
The moon appears at its largest when it is closest to the horizon so it takes a combination of good timing, preparation and no little skill to record a satisfactory image.
Tom said his interest in astrophotography (photographs of the night sky and astronomical features) has been growing recently though he had some images from about 10 years ago which he now says are “all rubbish”.
Before he educated himself, he would even be confusing his satellites with his meteors: “But I always had a fascination with the moon and Milky Way and all that type of stuff. And I suppose as my craft of photography came along, I'd notice things on Instagram and I remembered that I used to really enjoy going out having good crack at night with the younger brother Dec and I used to think it was brilliant.”
He gives credit to one of the most celebrated photographers in the Midlands, if not Ireland, Rahugh man James Crombie.
He met James and his colleague Colin Hogg during the April 2020 Covid-19 lockdown when they were photographing the 'super moon' which resulted in the famous 'Hurler on the Moon' picture.
“I saw the level of work and dedication that went into it, and the planning. I knew that if I'm to have more luck at this I'll have to take a page out of the boys' book.
“So I started researching how to calculate these different things, but I suppose, again, it's down to planning. It's never a fluke.
“If you walk around with a camera and wait for something to happen, the chances are it won't.”
He was familiar with Mullagh Tower, which is on a hill on the land of Alo Dillon, having visited it for a story when he was staff photographer for the Tullamore Tribune.
He carried out his research into the movement of the moon, established the exact location of the tower, and estimated its height.
After that, he was at the mercy of Storm Dudley.
Last year Tom was named as a runner-up in the prestigious ‘Reach for the Stars’ astrophotography competition run by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
His winning image, ‘North Star Jesuit House’ is a series of tacked images, taking in the North Star at Tullybeg House, the former Jesuit boarding school in Rahan.
The image was selected as a runner-up from over 180 entries by an expert judging panel. One of his other entries ‘Skytrain Lough Boora’ was also chosen to feature in an exhibition of the judges’ 20 top-rated images.