Sunday’s moon.
Let’s just call this a good lesson in what not to do while trying to get that perfect shot of a huge moon rising up from the pumpkin patch. Oh wait. That’s a different story.
The super moon sort of snuck up on me, even though we’d been told about it daily for at least a week. Suddenly it was Sunday and I hadn’t looked up any instructions on how to shoot a great image. I figured I’d wing it, using things I’d learned about shooting stars.
Moving up into Sunday’s sky
Right. Never wing something that only occurs every 18 years. Especially when you’re already 60. I never did get it right, though, while messing with white balance I did get a gray image that was pretty sharp.
Different white balance on Sunday night.
So Sunday night I went home and read some articles online. I put the manual settings into the camera prior to heading out into the dark. I had good intentions.
A little cloudy Monday evening.
Monday evening the moon came up more than 45 minutes later than Sunday night. Plus the library was open, so there were lots of parking lot lights to contend with. AND the moon came up much further to the north on Monday.
So far to the north that at first we thought it had been obscured by clouds, and we packed stuff up and headed to the car. During the walk down the hill I glanced over my shoulder and saw it, right above the library!
Super moon over library.
I tried a lot of different shutter speeds and found out that the faster it moved the sharper the image when it was just the moon.
Golden orange moon Monday night.
The clouds shifted, moved over the moon, then moved again setting it free. The moon grew more golden, though it still came out orange in my camera.
It was a dark and cloudy night.
I tried and tried to get a true color, trying all the white balance options, but though I got one shot that was more black and grey, otherwise they were just shades of orange. Eventually the moon was high and my fingers were cold, so I gave up and went home. Some of the images are nice, but none of them are what I actually saw.
Clouds move in.
So more lessons must be learned, more studying needs to be done. And I need another clear night with a beautiful moon so that I can try it again.
I can’t say the evenings were total failures — after all I got to spend two nights under a beautiful super moon.
Really, I can’t complain.
Goodnight moon.
Change Is Hard 