Thunder Moon or Full Buck Moon

Posted in Astro Photography, Lighthouses of California, Moon, Moonrise, Nikon, Photography, Santa Cruz CATagged , , , , , ,

Copyright ©2017 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I stayed close to home this past week-end after having been gone for two week-ends in row. It was nice hanging out with He-Man at home.  Saturday we got in a morning hike, but left later than we should have. By 9am it was already 82°.  We selected a trail that would lead us up to the Redwoods, and Oaks and shade.

We spent the rest of the afternoon indoors with air conditioning.

Saturday evening a good friend and I headed over the hill to Santa Cruz to our traditional Full Moon over the Walton Lighthouse shot.  If you’ve been following me awhile you’ll have seen this lighthouse on my blog before featuring the Moon. I shot the July Moon over this lighthouse last year. Click here.

The weather over the hill was the complete opposite of home. It was still in the 80’s when we left San Jose, but it was in mid 60’s with a breeze on the coast.  I couldn’t get into my hoodie, and wind-breaker fast enough.  I even broke out my gloves!

I set up my rig where I had plotted the Moon to line up over the Lighthouse, but was prepared to move quickly if I needed to adjust my position.  Here’s where we first spotted the Moon rising.  It was faint due to the low marine layer in the air.

Walton Lighthouse and Thunder Moon

We relocated down to the shore and soon the Moon lined up over the Lighthouse.

Copyright © Deborah M. Zajac ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This is a two frame blended composited image.  The base image had a clear view of the water, and good Moon/lighthouse alignment, but the light wasn’t shining in the Lighthouse so, I blended in the shot right after this one which had the light on. Why not just use that shot you might be asking? Three people walked into the frame obscuring the water.  So, I took the best of both frames blending them together to make the image I wanted to make.

Friday night I went out to the backyard to photograph the Waxing 98.8% Moon.  This is slightly cropped.

July Buck Moon Waxing 98.8%

The July Moon is called Thunder Moon

“Named due to the prevalence of summer thunder storms. It’s sometimes referred to as the Full Buck Moon because at this time of the year, a buck’s antlers are fully grown.”~ https://uk.news.yahoo.com/complete-list-every-full-moon-141136773.html

Since I rarely hear the Thunder but, do see Bucks I think of it more as the Full Buck Moon.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I won’t lie. I. Was. A. Slug. 🙂 It was too hot to do much outside although it was cooler by a few degrees.

I hope you had a lovely week-end, and you have a wonderful week!

Nikon Df| Nikkor 200-500mm| SanDisk Digital Film| PS CC 2017

more to come…

 

 

49 thoughts on “Thunder Moon or Full Buck Moon”

  2. Deborah, it is a gorgeous way you were able to give us the full moon over the Walton Lighthouse! Simply divine!
    I have always loved how the Native Americans named the full moons. A long time ago in 2012 -14, I used to post calendars. Including international holidays and each month’s flower and gem. This wasn’t so much for people our age; but those who were younger or from another country. We grew up knowing some monthly details. Thank goodness for Hallmark card shops for their free purse calendars!
    Have another lovely weekend with your husband. It was nice to have had a hike and then collapse and relax. 🙂

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    1. Merging images is one of the few things I …sorta, kinda know how to do in Photoshop. 🙂 Although I still can mess that up too.

      I’m so happy to hear you had a great week-end too!

      Thank you so much for the comment and for looking Joey!

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  8. I love the blend in which the light shines through the window. It’s an added effort that really makes it special. I laughed when you said “setting up your rig”.

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  11. I’ve mentioned before how impressed I am with the effort you put into your photos. I’m curious about this ‘blending’ technique. I’m sure there a lot of us who would be interested in reading about how you do it.

    btw – LOVE the 2nd photo. It’s that little splash of a wave at the bottom which makes it extra special in my eyes.

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    1. Thank you so much Joanne! Keeping that little splash in addition to the green light were the two reasons I wanted to blend the two frames. When those people walked into my frame and blocked all the water I wasn’t too worried about that because I had the first image sans people. 🙂

      Blending and compositing really does come in handy when you need to or want to combine images to create something artistic or in my case create the image I wanted to while the Moon was in the right spot. It requires a software program that allows you work in layers like Photoshop does.

      I was thinking about reblogging a post I wrote about compositing the phases of the Sun during the Total Annular Eclipse since another major Eclipse will occur in August. I thought that post might prove useful to someone who is fortunate enough to be able to see and photograph it. I used the same blending techniques. I’ll post that this week.
      Unfortunately, I won’t be able to go where that Eclipse is happening. 😦

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      1. That solar eclipse is going to be a really big deal. Sadly, we won’t be seeing it either, but I’m sure there will be those in the plan taking much better photos than I could ever hope to achieve.
        I’ll be looking for your repost!

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        1. It is! I too will be looking at the images of others who are fortunate enough to be able to travel to see it. I’m hoping to photograph the partial here from the back yard.

          There’s another Total Solar Eclipse in 2024 that goes through Eastern Canada I think. Perhaps you can see that one?

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            4. The last time we have a significant lunar eclipse, Mr Science got viewing glasses for everyone and we had a *party* of sorts. It didn’t start out that way, but more and more people seemed to want to join us 🙂
              Maybe the fact we were sitting on the roof of the house at one point might have had something to do with it 😉

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  12. These are just beautiful photos Deborah. I love the full moon, I love lighthouses, so, it follows…

    Ours was a pretty lazy weekend, but it felt good.

    I have to add, I am always impressed with how much planning goes into your photo shoots. I think I’ve said this before, but if anyone ever suggests that you were ‘lucky to be in the right place at the right time,’ I’ll come out and smack them (if He Man doesn’t beat me to it).

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    1. Thank you so much Dan! I’m glad you were resting!

      Hopefully He-Man beats you to it. 🙂 Thank you for the offer! I appreciate that you realize it’s not just going outside and pushing the shutter button. There is thought and planning in our photos.

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          1. We do have a powerful sump pump, thank goodness. I bailed for hours until Paul found a shop-vac (all the stores were sold out!) and even with that it took most of the day to get all the water out. What a soggy mess. This morning there were news helicopters flying over the town. We couldn’t believe how high the water was everywhere. Cars were floating around in parking lots, roads were closed. Before the developers ruined this area, there were extensive wetlands here that would absorb big storms like this but everything is roofed and paved now.

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