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This serene loking scene was photographed from halfway up Moel Famau, my local hill in North Wales.
This view is looking west towards Snowdonia, and you can see the Snowdon horseshoe range in the background.
What attracted me to this scene was the rare convergence of elements, that I've only seen on a handful of occasions. Let's take a closer look.
Of course, the main attention grabber is the full moon. This photo was taken just before sunrise, so the moon, when full was setting just as the sun was rising.
This means you can photograph the full mooon when the western sky is quite bright, and thus you can expose for the sky without overexposing the moon. Also, if there are any wispy clouds on the horizon then having a few strands of cloud over the face of the moon adds interest.
The next phenomena to notice is the darkish blue area on the horizon. This is called the earth shadow (google it) and it occurs in clear skies just before sunrise to the west, or just after sunset to the east. A high vantage point, such as I had that morning, or an unimpeded horizon like at the coast is helpful in seeing the full extent of this beautiful effect.
The earth shadow only lasts a few minutes so it's easy to miss!
Moving up above the earth shadow there is a lovely area of graduated mauve sky glow, as the upper atmosphere catches the sun's rays just before the sun broaches the eastern horizon.
The whole effect shown in this photo only lasted about two minutes in total, then the moon sank into the horizon, the earth shadow lifted and the mauve sky glow turned to a more normal shade of blue as the sun rose.
Worth getting up early for? I think so!
Filename - moon full 02.jpg
Camera - Canon 5D
Lens - 100-400mm zoom @ 220mm
Exposure - 1/8sec @ f8, ISO100
Location - Vale of Clwyd
This image - 800x533px JPEG
Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2
Comments - Tripod, mirror lockup and cable release used to prevent camera shake
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.