Moon Light

My quest to photograph every 2010 full moon is off to an interesting start. The January full moon rise was only 15 minutes before sunset, and with the sky darkened by storm clouds, and the moon taking at least 40 minutes to clear the local hills, I didn't have much light to work with. With the thick clouds, I was afraid I might not see the moon at all. I could only hope that there would be a break in the clouds at the right time and place.
I was so excited to see this first glow of light.In this second photo, there is more here than just glow.

If you look very closely, you can make out
the top edge of the moon as it peeks over the hill.

I didn't realize what I had captured in this third photo until I saw it on my computer. Look closely again and you can see the shape of almost the whole sphere. I cropped this quite a bit so the moon would be bigger and easier to recognize. This was the last shot of the moon I got that night. It disappeared behind the clouds and even though I waited patiently for over an hour, it never showed itself again.

I enjoyed being out at night. When was the last time you were out at night? I mean actually outside, not just away from home after dark. It's a little strange and wonderful at the same time. As I took my attention away from the moon I could no longer see, I marveled at the colors still in the sky. If it hadn't been so muddy, I would have sat down and just looked up for awhile. When the rain started to fall, I went home.

That was on Friday night. On Saturday night, I had a plan to shoot a reflection of the moon in one of the many puddles around town. For this, I had to wait until the moon was well up in the sky. There I was, out again after dark. My plan didn't work out very well because puddle water is pretty muddy and the moon looked pretty bland. Then I thought of the pond in Community Park. I didn't get the photo I had imagined, but I like this shot with the moon reflection and the Centennial Recreation Center in the background.

And I liked wandering around outside again after dark.