At long last, the super moon rose last Sunday evening.  I suppose it wasn’t really the super moon–after all, the moon was officially full nearly 12 hours earlier.  But whether you count it as the full, super moon rise or something less than that, it was dramatic.

At first, I was afraid the moon would not be visible at all that night.  The low-lying clouds around the horizon threatened to ruin the view altogether.  We watched and watched and suddenly a reddish glow started to show through the clouds.  The glow turned from a faint hint of red to a full moon with a silhouette cloud in the foreground in a matter of moments.  I barely had time to breathe before the scene before me was changing.

The moon disappeared behind a strip of clouds

After a quick exposure adjustment, I managed to capture the red-glowing moon.

A second moon rise in the same night

It rose a second time–or at least it looked that way.  It passed through a stretch of clouds, appearing to rise all over again, when it crossed over the top of the cloud bank.

As it rose above the last trace of clouds, I switched lenses.  I’m not that excited by close-ups of the full moon and I was shooting with a 100-400mm plus a 1.4x extender.  There’s not much you can do wide with that combination.  I switched to the 24-70mm lens instead.  It was a good decision.  The extra bright moon over the Market Street Bridge was far more interesting than a close up of the rock.  Plus I got some serious topics to study up on as a result.

A helicopter forms a bright streak in the foreground

Switching to wide angle brings the Market St Bride into view