Rolling the moon down a cloud
We caught the first full moon of September on the first day of the month. The clouds spun and stretched across the sky during the moonrise off of the prairie west of Calgary. The moon leaped up quickly daring the clouds to dim her bright light. It was beautiful.
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A sliver of dawn on the prairie
Yesterday I was on the prairie north of Langdon. When I left my home it was snowing steadily so I was unsure what an hour’s drive east would find. As the night slipped away, clouds opened small, uneven windows to the morning’s early light. It did not take long for the color to deepen while it painted more of sky. The farm structure’s silhouette served as an anchor in the landscape while dawn pulled the day forward.
To the west, the full moon fell below the clouds as it slid towards the Rocky Mountains. I found the alpenglow, the color of the clouds and the golden hue of the moon from the light pushing through a long stretch of the atmosphere to be absolutely beautiful. A lovely way to start any day by my standards.
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Blood Moon Steampunk
(Please click on the image to open a higher resolution version of this photograph)
Eclipses fascinate me and this morning’s lunar eclipse was outstanding. It was overcast for much of the night so I wasn’t sure how visible the Moon would be as it reached totality. While it was in the Earth’s umbra, the clouds started to clear and I was able to watch the latter part of the performance. This image was taken when a cloud passed along the top edge of the Moon while the moon was coming out of the penumbra and the sun was lighting the upper hemisphere.
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The setting of a supermoon
Moonset of the latest supermoon coincided with dawn last weekend. I was photographing the prairie landscape and climbed up to a spot where I had a bit of elevation in order to look over the fields and be somewhat on level with the Rockies. The mist laying low over the fields was a lucky bit of happenstance.
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Full Moon Rising
We escaped to Montana for a couple of days yesterday. The drive along the Going-To-The-Sun road that bisects Glacier National Park was beautiful with great views through the mountains in the evening light. When we pulled into Columbia Falls, we noticed a glow along the mountain ridge on the west side of the park. The moon was rising fast and we didn’t have to wait very long to watch it clear the mountains. It had a very different feel from the last moonrise I watched in the Khutzeymateen and was every bit as beautiful. A great start to our getaway in another great part of the world.
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A blue moon in the Khutzeymateen
Canon 5DIII camera with a Canon 500mm lens: 1/1000th of a second at f/4 on ISO 2500
On the last night in the Khutzeymateen there was a short break in the clouds right as the full moon was clearing the tree tops across the bay. This was the fourth moon of the season earning the distinction of being a blue moon. It seemed an appropriate way to end a spectacular visit to this wonderful inlet.
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Hide and seek with a blue moon
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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.
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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.
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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.
Please note: the moon trails were created by moving the camera around slightly during longer exposures up to two seconds long. I wrote the story for a bit of fun not to be mistaken for an actual phenomenon observed.
Christopher Martin Photography 