Tag: Full moon

Whatever Weds. June Moons

Posted in Moon, Moonrise, Whatever WednesdayTagged , , , , , , 45 Comments

Copyright ©2023 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

We’ve been having thunderstorms with lightening almost every day lately so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see or photograph this month’s full Moon. The day before the full Moon we had storm clouds rolling in all afternoon, but then it cleared up about an hour before Moonrise so, I thought I’d photograph it in case the following night was too overcast to photograph it.

While waiting for the moon to rise enough to get past the mountains I saw a couple of people in Motorized-gliders flying around the mountain where the moon would rise. I hoped they were going to stay long enough for the moon to rise, and fingers crossed one or both would do a moon fly-by. One did!!

Waxing Gibbous 98.5%

It looks like a big bug doesn’t it? The sun was still up so the moon is really faded/washed out.

The following night there were enough breaks in the clouds that I was able to photograph the Full Moon. This is a two frame composite image.

One frame exposed for the sky and foreground and the other exposed for the Moon. I blended the frames in Photoshop.

Strawberry Moon

June’s full moon gets one of its names from the wild strawberries that begin to ripen during the early summer and be gathered by Native American tribes.

Other names for June’s Full Moon are:

Rose Moon, Hot Moon, and Mead Moon.

Yesterday the wind really picked up tossing two patio chairs across the patio, one cushion was blow across the entire patio, and a planter tipped over. The Zephyr wind wins again!😂 We also had some thunder and a little lightening, but both were several miles away.

Saturday #1 Grandson is coming to visit for a week or two for summer. We have plans to hit the grocery store and library straight-away. We hope the weather improves so we can go to the lake and take him paddling.

That’s all from here. I hope you’re having a good week!

Nikon D810| Nikkor 300mmf/4| PS CC 24.5.0

Wordless Wednesday-Lunar Eclipse Phases

Posted in Blood Moon, Moon, Nikon, Total Lunar Eclipse, Wide Field Astro-photographyTagged , , , , , , , , , 52 Comments

Copyright ©2021 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Lunar Eclipse May 26,2021 Phases from Full Moon, Partial, and Totality

Nikon D810| Nikkor 300mm f/4| PS CC 22.4.1 Composite made from 7 frames.

more to come…

Wild Wednesday 31/52 The Moon, and Mars

Posted in Blood Moon, Moon, Moonrise, Nikon, Photography, Planets, Travel and TourismTagged , , , , , , , , , , , 60 Comments

Copyright ©2018 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The 27th was the Full Buck Moon, or Blood Moon because there was a Total Lunar Eclipse that night, unfortunately, not seen here in North America.  I just went out to my backyard to photograph it.  It wasn’t red by the time it rose over the mountains and I was able to see it from my yard, but it had a lovely warm glow.

Full Buck Moon

The 28th, Saturday, several friends and I met in Santa Cruz, CA to photograph the Moon and Mars from a favorite “go to” spot; Walton’s Lighthouse.

I was watching the fog/cloud weather report all day, and it looked good until 5pm just when we were meeting. We met at Marianne’s Ice Cream parlor. Another “go to”, “must stop” , “it’s tradition” places while in Santa Cruz. They have 105 different ice creams to choose from. It’s not easy picking just one! I had a Jr. cup of Banana, Almond ice cream. It was good, but I wish it had more banana in it. No pictures I’m afraid. I always forget to do that!   Despite the low fog we continued on and photographed sunset-it was one of those soft pink evenings. This is looking/facing ESE more or less.

Belt of Venus Surrounds the Walton Lighthouse

We didn’t think there would be much hope of seeing the Moon rising just above the lighthouse because of the thick band of fog behind the lighthouse so we moved to higher ground and hoped for some breaks in the fog/low cloud band.

In the image below: Mars (right of and higher than lighthouse) rose higher than fog band first, and I think that other tiny bright object to the right of it near the edge of the image is part of the constellation Sagittarius. Or Spica? I’m not sure.

I love that Bonfires, well, not huge ones are still allowed at this beach. A lifeguard came out to make a group put out a large one in the black spot in the lower right of my image. I’m sure they were not happy about that.

Mars Shines Red over Santa Cruz CA

We  walked north and set up on higher ground; a cliff overlooking the beach and while we were shooting Mars a teenage boy asked me what we were photographing, and as I was explaining about Mars, and hoping the Moon would rise above the fog I looked back toward the lighthouse and saw the Moon, it was above the lighthouse as we planned it to be, and it was RED! Then I excitedly pointed that out to him, and my companions.  The boy said, ” Coool!” So, did I! 😊 This is my favorite of the images I made of the scene.

Waxing Gibbous Moon and Mars over Walton Lighthouse

I have no idea who the person with the spot/flash light in line with the lighthouse below on the beach is, but their alignment is nearly perfect right?  That’s Mars to the right, higher than the Moon. Not so red in this image though…the Moon was stealing that color.

Anyway, we all were thrilled after thinking we’d not see the Moon above the lighthouse at all.

When we all had our fill of the Moon, Mars, the Lighthouse, and beach we went to a diner for a quick, late dinner then headed home. Traffic hit a snag near Los Gatos and we crawled for miles. There was no wreck or construction Thank God! Just going home from the beach, Summertime, Silicon Valley traffic all reaching the bottom of the Santa Cruz mountains at the same time.  I got home just about Midnight tired, but very happy with the photography and spending time with good friends.  Though some were missed! You know who you are. 😉

He-Man had the light on for me, and was waiting up for me sorta, kinda snoozing on the sofa in the family room.   I know he’s a Keeper!  He went to bed, and I got my images uploading then got myself ready for bed, and lastly I checked to make sure all my images uploaded sans problemes then Diva Dog and I joined He-Man for good night’s rest.

I coulda slept til noon I’m sure Sunday morning, but Diva Dog, and Box the Guinea Pig were not having it.  There’s a down side to being an early riser normally when you have pets. They’re never. sleeping. in! Evah! LOL! Since we were up He-Man and I had really nice bike ride around the neighborhood together. That has only happened a few times in our 39 years together! He’s the cyclist. I’m the sluggish hiker, and his cheerleader.  We may do this again. It was pretty nice.

We’re halfway to the week-end! I hope you all are having a good week.  I have nothing. NOTHING planned to photograph this week-end.   I’m going to think of something. What do you have fun/good planned? Anything?

Nikon D810| Nikkor 24-120mm f4, and Nikkor 200-500mm| Hoodman Digital Film| PS CC 2018

more to come…

 

 

 

 

Thunder Moon or Full Buck Moon

Posted in Astro Photography, Lighthouses of California, Moon, Moonrise, Nikon, Photography, Santa Cruz CATagged , , , , , , 49 Comments

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…

 

 

My 2016 Favorite Images

Posted in Best of the Year, Nikon, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 51 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I’ve spent a bit more time whittling down my 2016 favorite images and I’ve got it down to 30 now.

Since there are so many still I thought I’d share those with you via a slideshow.  This is my first slide show here on WordPress.  I need to find and install a different slideshow plugin. I don’t really care for the slideshow controls and caption on my image. 😦  But, it was pretty idiot proof to use, and I am a pretty talented idiot when it comes to computers, programs, and software in general.

I hope you like the images.  Feel free to let me know which are your favorites.

 

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I really have to give a “SHOUT OUT!” to my family for giving me so much free time. I was able to put this together a lot faster because they were on vacation and playing with #1 Grandson a lot. That really freed me up to cook, clean, and sort through thousands of images.

Update: I’ve linked this post up with Jim Goldstein’s annual “Best of xxxx” Photography Blog post. To see all the incredible photographer’s and their favorite images of 2016

click here.

More to come…

 

July’s Buck Moon

Posted in Astrophotography, Civil Twilight, Moon, Moonrise, Nikon, Photography, Santa Cruz CATagged , , , , , , 30 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The July Full Moon is called the “Buck Moon” in North America because male Deer are usually beginning to grow their antlers again in July.
The July Full Moon also has two other names. The Hay Moon; July is when Farmers begin storing their Hay, and the Thunder Moon because of the many thunder storms in the month of July.

I made this image in Santa Cruz, CA. The Moon looks large because it’s close to the horizon. Being on the coast there was a lot of moisture/atmosphere in the air, and the fog was slowly rolling in from the southeast so, the Moon looks a bit diffused.

The Moon was so pretty in the pink reflected light of the Belt of Venus. The pink part of the sky after sunset is called the Belt of Venus. It’s a phenomenon that happens after sunset and before sunrise. “The dark band of the Earth’s shadow at dusk and dawn often has a light pink arch above it, known as the Belt of Venus. It extends about 10-20 degrees up from the horizon, acting as a boundary between the shadow and the sky. The effect is due to the reddened sunlight being backscattered in the atmosphere, which produces the rosy glow.”~http://www.howitworksdaily.com/what-is-the-belt-of-venus/

Full Buck Moon

as the Moon rose higher it began to turn more Golden.

Full Buck Moon Twilight

Then it was time to head home.

Nikon Df| Nikkor 200-500mm| Delkin Digital Film| Tripod

More to come…