Stomper takes 477 photos, spends 29 hours to create 21-second video of Worm Moon setting

An amateur nature photographer spent 20 minutes taking photos of the Worm Moon setting on the morning of March 26 from the Singapore Cruise Centre.

The photos were taken in one-second intervals.

He then dedicated another 29 hours to assembling a 21-second video from the 477 pictures he took.

The time was needed to clean up the images to reveal more details of the Worm Moon, said Stomper Lee.

"Because the images were shot under high ISO, I needed to denoise all of them," said the Stomper, who used a Canon EOS R5 camera with an RF 100-500mm lens.

"So I needed to inspect every single one of them as well. During this time of the year, haze is really an issue for us and we needed to 'dehaze'.

"And because it was a continuous shoot of 477 frames, we had birds flying past the frame."

After using Adobe Lightroom to edit and produce the timelapse video, the Stomper shared it on Facebook on March 28.

He told Stomp that he chose the Port of Singapore Authority Brani Terminal as the foreground for the Worm Moon because the terminal will be moved to Tuas by 2027.

"This is for a memorial kind of record," said the Stomper.

"I was very pleased with the weather conditions. As much as we plan our angle and time to capture the moment, if the weather decides NOT to play ball, we have to pack up and try another day."

Fortunately, the weather did play ball as the Worm Moon happens only once a year.

Said to be the last full moon of winter, it is known as the Worm Moon because it appears during the time of year when the ground begins to soften and the earthworms reappear.

It is also known as the Crow Moon, the Crust Moon, the Sap Moon and the Lenten Moon.