Hide and seek with a blue moon
(please click on an image to open a higher resolution version)
Last night as the setting sun was painting the broken clouds above Lake Okanagan, the waxing moon was using them to hide as it rose. The colours in the evening sky were beautiful pastels and the bright lunar surface stood in sharp contrast.
This blue moon will be full on August 31st so these images are of the moon in its gibbous waxing phase.
I’ll be watching again tonight to see if our earth’s satellite has any more tricks planned.
Calgary Landscapes: Lunar Eclipse
Here in Calgary the lunar eclipse started early at 4am. While walking for an unobstructed view of the moon, the image above was my first look at the eclipse.
However it wasn’t until about 7am that the moon was fully in the Earth’s shadow about an hour before sunrise and stayed there until just before dropping below the horizon.
I walked through the downtown early ending up on the Centre Street Bridge. From the bridge, the moon was glowing red over the Prince’s Island Park on the Bow River. The Park was illuminated by Christmas lights and the occasional street light which formed nice elements to include in some of the compositions.
When the sun was almost up, the moon had necessarily started to move out of the shadow. It was also very close to the horizon at that moment so the last image of the eclipse I have is a sliver of the moon framed in between the columns of one of the four lion masted plinths on the bridge.
The Crazy Lunar Eclipse
Before Earth’s shadow started to march across the face of the moon last night, I photographed the full moon as it climbed above the trees in Redwood Meadows. You can see the mist around the moon and I was a little concerned that clouds and haze may obscure the visible signs of the direct alignment of the sun, Earth and moon. I didn’t know then that the clouds would largely stay clear or that I was in for a very interesting performance.
The solstice lunar eclipse started normally last night and I was out in the freezing cold photographing the progression towards totality.
Then, things started to get very strange… as the moon started racing around like an excited puppy.
I went to bed as the moon settled back down, slipping behind the Earth and into deep shadow.
I saw it looming large on the horizon this morning so it seems to have emerged from shadow and appears to be behaving predictably once more.
I enjoyed the lead up to the eclipse and the morning after was spectacular as well. The odd bit during the actual eclipse was very fun too although I’m still looking for a reasonable explanation.
