Pumpkin moon

The lunar eclipse last Friday was not visible from here on Vancouver Island, but we got treated to a full orange moon and its pathway over the water last night.

10:20 PM. The path extends from the weeds (barely visible) along the shore to the horizon.

They call it a "blood moon", but from here, it's orange. Orange blood? Didn't sound right. I looked up other common names for this moon.

The Full Moon for the month of July is called Buck Moon to signify the new antlers that emerge on deer buck's foreheads around this time. This Full Moon is also known as Thunder Moon, Wort Moon, and Hay Moon from Old English/Anglo-Saxon. (Timeanddate.com)

That orange is a pumpkin-y colour; it's too early for pumpkins, but I'm naming it a pumpkin moon, anyway.

Seen on the way home from a party: luckily my passenger didn't mind waiting while I propped the camera on the back of the car and tried to focus.

Pointing at the moon

4:43 PM, Friday, at Oyster Bay

Two days before the full "Wolf Moon".

A Skywatch post.

Supermoon road

It gets dark early around here this time of year. Coming home in pitch-dark at 7:30, the street-lighted road ahead of me continued on across the channel, painted in place by the full moon.

Yellow light, white light. Taken through the windshield with the pocket camera.

I went home for the other camera. 7:43. The moon is now too high to capture both road and moon at once from this hill.

I drove south, trying to escape streetlights and spill lights from the houses and hotels along the waterfront. The first dark spot was at Oyster Bay: 8:30 PM; by now the moon was high above, the glow on the water fading.

Looking south, over Oyster Bay. The car tail-lights never stopped.

Three stars. The night was clear and just above freezing.

The moon shining through trees. And taillights, of course.

Looking back, northwest towards Stories Beach. Quadra Island in the distance on the right.

Two photo sites marked. Google maps.

A Skywatch post.

Shivery

The moon was fat and round, a searchlight riding high in the sky, too high to make its accustomed path across the strait; the water, instead, gleamed faintly shore to shore.

On my way home from an evening with friends, I stopped to get a better look. I got out and crunched across a lawn that's usually wet enough for my shoes to sink into the mud underneath, where now I could walk a foot above the tips of the grass blades. When my way was blocked by icy, snow-covered logs, I stopped and pulled the little camera out of the pocket where it was keeping warm.

I tried to focus on the moon. No good; I was shivering too much to keep it in the viewfinder. I leaned on one of the tall chainsaw carvings Campbell River residents leave dotted over the landscape, using it as a tripod of sorts. The moon still danced.

Aiming away from the moon itself, the viewfinder and screen were completely black. I hugged the carving and took photos, anyhow; Photoshop does wonders in finding light where none was visible.

Logs under snow, and the lights of a resort on Quadra Island. And moonlight.

Back at the car, with the heater going, I was still shivering. The steering wheel served as my tripod substitute this time, as I focused on the garish lights of the hotel across the highway.

The lights look better without the hotel. Photo as taken; no Photoshopping.

'nuff silliness. I'll be sensible tomorrow, once my brain thaws.

5:09 PM

It gets dark early these days, here at the 50th parallel north. Driving home this afternoon, I had to stop near Oyster Bay to look at the moon. It was only a few minutes after 5 o'clock. Sunset was at 4:27 PM.

Taken with the little pocket Sony, using the car as tripod.

The hints of pink at the top of the hills are snowy mountain peaks on the mainland, lit by a full moon.

Test shot: cloudy night, with moon

As I was coming home tonight, the moon was playing peek-a-boo behind dark clouds. I stopped in a handy parking lot to get a photo before they swallowed it altogether.

No man in this moon.

The little pocket Sony was fast enough to deal with camera shake without a tripod in the dark. (The curvy car door doesn't make a good substitute.) The background was noisy, though; I don't know if all the colours were from the Home Depot lights behind me, or from the moon's halo in the clouds.

Sunset over Reifel Island

We started out for our afternoon walk late, delayed by conversation with neighbours, and slowed, once on the road, by the fast-dropping sun in my eyes as we drove west. We arrived at Reifel Island about the time we normally would be leaving, with less than an hour before they started closing the gates.

I'm glad; otherwise, we would have missed this.

A hot orange sun slips over the horizon,

painting dried grasses with warm light,

and highlighting the red-brown of a hooded merganser.

The sun drops out of sight, but the orange light spreads upward,

tinting even the sky opposite.

The moon rises in the east, over pink mountain peaks. It will turn red towards morning, so another visitor tells me.

A Skywatch post.