My View of Life on the Dock
Saw Some Autumn. It Was Awesome 2022 photo series description: Early fall Oct. 2022. Leaves are changing color in Gloucester and Rockport. Fall and Halloween scenes. See 2021 here.
Last night’s moonrise over the Back Shore was spectacular. Click on the sequence above to see full size. I don’t know why the Moon has a “neck” in the middle photo, or what that reflective appearance is termed, but it was so interesting to see.
February’s Snow Moon was also a Super Moon. It was the the second of a trio of Super Moons taking place in 2019. The Super Snow Moon was also the largest of the three (closest to Earth). The third and final Super Moon of the year is taking place on March 21st.
Our Charlotte loves looking at the Moon, so when she popped up in bed at 5:30 in the morning and exclaimed Moon!, I bundled her up and off we went to see the Moon setting over the Harbor. I wrote last month that she loves looking up in the sky for the Moon, largely from reading her the story book Good Night, Moon, and now we are reading Buenos Noches, Luna, practicing for an upcoming trip to Mexico.
NASA: When a full moon appears at perigee (its closest point to Earth), it is slightly brighter and larger than a regular full moon—and that’s where we get a ‘supermoon.’ The phrase was coined in 1979.
Beautiful moon rise through the coral pink sunset clouds last night.
Beautiful January Wolf Moon rising and setting over Gloucester.
Moonsetting over the Harbor
Moonset over the Fort
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdbmr8uFgVN/
Watching the sunset from the Easternpoint Lighthouse I then headed to catch the moonrise over Niles Pond. Despite the full moon, it was so dark that I could barely see the ground that I was standing on and did not even know Mr. Swan was swimming about until looking through the photos just now!
Niles Pond Moonrise
Eastern Point Lighthouse and Dogbbar Panorama
Last night’s Harvest Moon rising was spectacular, especially the striations of clouds in the moonglow. Early this morning the moon was nearly as big and beautiful too, and as I was setting up my gear, Snowy Egrets flew into the setting moon.
This first shot is actually from Thursday evening, several hours before the precise full moon:
On Friday night, the “blue moon” put on a real show, playing hide-and-seek through the clouds:
Click here to see these two and more photos close-up:
– Fr. Matthew Green
A thin photo of the waning quarter moon taken at moonrise at midnight. Off to the right are the lights marking the Rockport Breakwater.
Rubber Duck Fun Fact #1: The moon is in its last quarter. But if you were standing on the moon what would the earth be? … Give Up? … First Quarter.
Rubber Duck Fun Fact #2: At dawn the moon will be straight up above us. It is also the direction that the earth is moving as it goes around the sun. We are moving so fast that if the moon suddenly stopped in its tracks we would smack into it within four hours. That is why you can see better shooting stars after midnight closer to dawn because we are facing into space in the direction we are traveling. You get more bugs smacking into your windshield than your side windows.
John and I ended up taking photos from very near the same spot to get the moonrise behind Thatcher Island, but then he moved on to other locations. Here are a few of his (amazing) photos.
Catch more of his photos on Flickr!
The exact time of the full moon last night was very close to midnight. That means that tonight’s moonrise will be almost as big as yesterday. Some of you got some amazing shots with the fog. I got a super dud in Rockport.
Tonight, same spot on the horizon but:
Moonrise: 8:52PM
Sunset: 7:48PM
Nautical Twilight: 8:59PM (cannot navigate by the horizon)
Astronomical Twilight 9:42PM (stars are out)
So it will be darker but your camera should still be able to pick up the horizon when the moon appears.
On my way to an appointment yesterday evening, I saw this amazing view. I turned my car around on Prospect St. and parked in order to snap this shot – and met another photographer who had done exactly the same thing at the same spot (we ended up parked one behind the other, and shooting from the same spot on the sidewalk…).
Weather Underground says the moon will not rise today:
But not to panic. The “last quarter” moon rose last night just before midnight. 11:47 PM to be precise. At 11:55 PM over the Rockport breakwater it looked like this:
The moon will not rise again until just after midnight tonight or 12:57 Sunday so there will be no “rising” on Saturday.
The quarter moon looks exactly like half a moon. It’s just a quarter of the cycle to new moon. If it stays clear you can see it set at lunch around 12:40PM but if you really want to watch it set get a bead on it about 30 minutes before setting as it will get pretty faint in the noon day sun as it fades into the haze on the horizon. If you’re logging in to GMG at sunrise just look up. The moon will be as high as it gets and a bit to the south.
Rubber Duck Fun Fact: The moon was a waxing gibbous moon until last night and now it is a waxing crescent.
Rubber Duck Fun Fact II: If we were standing on the moon where Neil Armstrong stepped out of the LEM right now we would have watched the sunset over the last day or so and the earth would look like just like the moon does right now except quite a bit bigger and very blue.
[morning edit] I was sleepy when I posted the photo and did not really look at it so possibly a small explanation:
It was kind of cold and my manual settings for shooting were a tad rushed so I shot a half dozen at different shutter speeds 2,4,8,15,30 seconds on a tiny tripod and went home to photoshop. In order to get some foreground I shot out of the little chasm to the left of Angle Point. I didn’t notice until this morning that the rocks did show up in the photo. The reason for that is I took two photos, a long and a short exposure and layered them together to try to get a decent photo out of crap. The wicked over exposed one I put on top and then just erased the overexposed moon so the the underexposed moon would come through from below.
That explanation does not explain much does it? Maybe I need more coffee.
Kim writes-
Looking for butterflies on Eastern Point and videotaping the sun setting as the moon was rising. I passed Niles Pond on the drive home and stopped to admire the moonglow over the water. The following dawn brought flaming red skies, a cygnet plaintively searching for its family, and a startlingly large (at least 2 feet in height) Black-crowned Night Heron. Quawking loudly as the sun began to rise, there was a half dozen more roosting in a nearby tree.
Check out Kim’s Blog Here- Kim Smith Designs
Young Boy watches sunset from life guard station and the moon rises while flying a kite.
Thursday I was off Woods Hole heading to where large fluke like to be reeled off the bottom. Last night we had panko fried fluke fillet with french fries. Tonight we have a sea bass that liked my fluke bait.
Heading there at dawn this is Nobska point on the left, Martha’s Vineyard on the right and a ferry in between. A cold front was backing in from the east making the clouds stack up at dawn.
Last night from Andrews Point the moon rose just to the left of the Sandy Bay breakwater. The green and red lights are on either end of the breakwater. Maybe 10:10PM tonight but looks a little too cloudy right now.
In real life I could see the lady, not the rabbit, or the old man:
Good Morning Gloucester 