RED MOON RISING

Camera? Check. Tripod? Check.


At the beach on time? Check. Early, even.


So early that I was losing my concentration (and vital body heat) and missed the exact moment of the moon rising. Oops.


Granted, I had been looking too far north and for a bright spot on the horizon, not for a subtle red glow right in front of me.


Prepared by having practiced shooting at infinity? Ah, no... Oh, well.


Still. Wow. Not your average moonrise.

(Although, I must admit, it was not as impressive as all the internet hype had led me to expect; I've seen the full moon appear quite a bit larger at times over the past year. Something tells me, however--say, for instance, as I was heading back to the mainland the car pulled over to the side of the road with an arm out the window holding up a cell phone to take a picture--that I should have waited around just a little bit longer, or at least pulled over myself. I had already fed the cats and even had the down jacket in the truck. I'm thinking I definitely should have at least stopped to look over my shoulder… :o/ )

ED. NOTE: Thanks to an astronomy geek friend o'mine, I now know that I really should have stopped on the boulevard on my way out of Stone Harbor. The rampant over-development of the island would not have made a pretty picture but it would have given me the perspective needed to make the supermoon super-sized...!

LEARNING A LESSON: Exposure

Thanks to an all-too-rare-this-time-of-year clear sky, there was a rather incredible waning-crescent moon rise on Monday. (And although Venus has a good lead on the moon these days, it can yet be captured in the same frame.) Still don't have the tripod within reach for these spur of the moment and fleeting photo opportunities, nor do I yet have a handle on aperture settings or how to get a basic little lens to focus on a relatively small, very distant point behind many detailed objects, but I did have a chance to play with exposure.


This is what the camera saw when allowed to set its own exposure time. Wow. What I was actually seeing with my relatively good night vision wasn't anywhere near close to this… (Trust me, there's a sliver of a moon hiding alongside that very straight-trunked tree on the left.) Because sunrise was in fact a bare hint on the horizon, the camera left the diaphragm open a good long while and the circuit board soaked up as much light info as fast as the wee little processors could handle. (It is also amazing how in-focus this shot is given the long exposure and my very shaky grasp on the camera.)


Whoops, not enough time to let the pixels percolate. (That's the moon, not dust on your monitor!)


Ah-ha, that's closer to what I was actually seeing. (Ok, as dark as this is, I had to cheat and lighten the exposure. Reducing the photo and posting it darkened it up considerably from what it looked like straight out of the camera.)


Still to be learned: (1) Figure how to shoot on a tripod out this window, and make sure the tripod is in the house when it's needed to shoot out this window. (2) Work on learning about aperture settings, because the tripod doesn't bear the sole responsibility for clear focus.

WAAAAHHHHHH...

Argh. So close...

1. Pay attention when you have the fleeting thought "full moon--check rising time" so that you can be prepared.
2. Prepare for full moon rises by learning how to photograph the moon with the new DSLR.
3. Remember that you had the fleeting thought "full moon--check rising time" early enough so that you can get to the beach on time for it (whether you are prepared or not).
4. Curse Murphy's Law that states the sky will be cloudless for moonrise when you aren't prepared for it (and the corollary that it will be cloudy when you are).