Moonrise on 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 launch
Star trails over the swurfer
Milky Way on Hilton Head beach
Milky Way on Hilton Head Island
Total Solar Ecllipse, 08/21/2017 14:31:55
Full Moon, May 18, 2019
Full moon on Hilton Head Island
Lunar ecllipse, 10 minute intervals, 01/20/2019
Lunar eclipse composite - May 15, 2022
Earthshine, sometimes called the Da Vinci Glow, captured on May 21, 2023. Earthshine results from the sun’s light reflecting off the Earth’s surface and then bouncing back off the Moon’s surface into our field of vision. Although this ghostly glow can usually be observed for several days before and after each New Moon, its visibility peaks during springtime at mid-northern latitudes. This increased visibility is due to the Moon’s position directly above the Sun at the time of its setting each evening. (A very difficult photo to expose for both the lights and darks, hence this photo is a composite of two exposures.)
Sometimes we are amazed by events in the heavens, like a lightening storm in the clouds. This storm came through and eventually eclipsed a nearly full moon. Not to be outdone, two days later the first Super Moon of 2023, one of two that both occurred in August 2023, created an amazing show over the waters of Hilton Head Island.
This unexpected image below was made very close to midnight on May 10, 2024. I’ll flatter myself by commenting that it reminded me of Ansel Adam’s famous print “Moonrise over Hernandez,” made in 1941. The unusual thing about this photo is that there was a rare observance of the Northern Lights on this night, something seldom seen in southeastern Kentucky. The image is a combination of several digital shots from a drone 386 feet above my driveway.
A larger panorama of the setting moon and the Northern Lights in SE Kentucky:
