Full moon over Barn Bluff
Last
night (Saturday, 01-10-2009) the moon was full and it
will be the largest and brightest full moon of 2009.
This month's full moon is known as the Wolf Moon,
from Native American folklore. The January full moon
is also known as the Old Moon and the Snow Moon.
A full moon rises right around sunset, no matter
where you are. That's because of the celestial
mechanics that produce a full moon: the moon and the
sun are on opposite sides of the Earth, so that
sunlight hits the full face of the moon and bounces
back to our eyes.
At moonrise, the moon will appear even larger than it
will later in the night when it's higher in the sky.
This is an illusion that scientists can't fully
explain. Some think it has to do with our perception
of things on the horizon vs. stuff overhead.
This shot was taken at 5:06 pm. f3.2, 1/320 sec, iso
1250, -1.67 EV, 70 mm focal length, hand held. I used
levels to pull some details back into the image, but
not so much to destroy the polarized sky. A very
modest amount of unsharp mask.