Serendipitous Moon Shots!

I had no plans to take moon photos. That is, until my 4 year old granddaughter said "look at the moon, Grandpa!". Sure enough, a big full moon, yellow in color, was just cresting the horizon. Beautiful! Some wispy clouds added to the beauty. I grabbed my camera, put on the telephoto lens, and took a couple handheld shots (my tripod was out in the car and I was in too much of a hurry to go get it). When the moon is on the horizon, it's not nearly as bright as when it's higher in the sky, and handheld shots generally look pretty bad. Here, I'll show you what I mean:

Not a great shot, but interesting how a moon on the horizon appears yellow and "squashed"!

About 20 minutes later I walked outside the house to see what the moon was doing and I could hardly believe it. There was a jet flying directly in front of the moon and leaving a contrail that looked like it was slicing the moon in half!! I could actually see the jet plane silhouetted against the upper edge of the moon, but it was moving fast, and gone by the time I captured this photo. Dang!! Oh well, a fun shot anyway.

"Bayer Aspirin Moon"

A moment later, the contrail was already starting to disappear.

  The next morning, my wife came in the house after walking the dog and said "you should really go out and take a pic of that moonset!". Wow, serendipity again!! She was right, the moon was just getting ready to set behind the hills. A few minutes later and I would have totally missed the shot!

I think it's cool how the moon appears to be rolling down the bumpy boulders! Look out below!!

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Thanks for stopping by!!