Sky Watch - Moon and clouds

The moon rises above the trees on a hazy March 7 and as seen later in the night.

Sky Watch - Three views

Sun's rays

Sunset

 

Full moon
 

If you have never seen the aurora (northern lights) in motion, check out this video link.

PhotoHunt - Circular

Lots of circular things around during Christmas, but I chose this one that comes around ever month!

Sky Watch - Light clouds

Cloud layers

Clouds at sunset

Moon and cloud

Sky Watch - Moon rising

First, a nice sunset;

and then the full moon peeked above the hills east of Frederick. These first three shots were taken from the top of a parking garage in the first few minutes of the moon's rise. The last two were taken from ground level about 30 minutes later. All shot with my 200 mm lens and cropped for posting.

Sky Watch - Eclipse

I stayed up to watch the eclipse of the moon and took some shots as it progressed. The first image is the full moon about an hour before the eclipse began. From past experience I set my camera to manual mode, spot metering and varied the shutter speed (first image 1/640 sec, last 8 sec). I went out about every ten minutes (it was cold and windy) during the eclipse and took four shots each time. For the last set I stayed out about 20 minutes. Near the end of the sequence shown light clouds began to obscure the moon (and I was getting sleepy) so I did not capture the exit from eclipse. From about fifty images, I selected these, cropped them and use PhotoShop Elements to create this image. No enhancements were done to the moon images.

Added January 7, 2011: NASA has posted some great images of the December lunar eclipse and the January partial solar eclipse. Here are the links:

Jan 4 Solar
Sunset, Moonset
Sunrise, Moonrise
December 23 Lunar
Eclipsing the sun
Eclipse at moonset
The solstice’s moon eclipse

Sky Watch - Almost full moon

The moon on November 19 and then two shots on the 20-th with wisps of clouds in the sky.

Sky Watch - Moon rise through clouds

This sequence was taken August 22 between 7:39 and 7:42 PM. The clouds were drifing slowly to the east.

Sky Watch Friday - Today and before

Sun behind clouds April 8

Wet birds in the tree top, April 11

Moonrise. April 11

For a great view of the full moon on April 9 (my photo was taken April 11), see this image from Nice, France.

Crane in the sky, April 16

Frederick City skyline, April 16

Sky Watch Friday - The morning after

Last Friday I posted the sunset of March 22. This week is the sunrise of March 23. I saw the moon in the dawn sky and went out to take a few shots. I then walked into the field for a clear view of the horizon where the sun would soon appear. There were contrails from the early morning flights that can be seen in some of these shots. And the last is a few to the southwest of the sun beginning to light the field.

Sky Watch Friday - Blue, dusk and sunset

Oct 31 - Blue sky and pine cones

Nov 2 - Light clouds at dusk

Nov 2 - Moon and clouds at dusk

Nov 5 - Sunset, wide view
Nov 5 - Sunset, zooming in close

Nov 5 - Sunset, fire in the clouds

Sky Watch Friday - Full moon and clouds

This sequence of pictures of the full moon was taken on the night of September 15 between 10:00 and 10:30 PM EDT. I had gone out earlier to try to capture the harvest moon rising, but the clouds intervened, so no photos of a big, orange moon over the fields. The streaks in the second photo are the wingtip lights of a passenger jet headed for Baltimore.

I also want to plug another group of sky watchers who post a photo and explanation every day. I have enjoyed this site of a daily basis for several years. These photographers have much grander cameras then we do, although they sometimes use everyday cameras. The site is Astronomy Picture of the Day hosted by NASA with contributors from around the world. The following links will give you an idea of the breadth of photos posted on this site.

Sky from mountain in Turkey

Eclipse over Great Wall of China

View from Mt Everest

Eagle Nebula

Horse head nebula

Sky Watch Friday - Beautiful skies

Monday - Blue and white skies

We had beatiful skies all this week. The skies have announced that Fall is coming. Here are a few samples of what we have enjoyed.

Wednesday - Full moon at dawn

Wednesday - Southeastern sky at sunrise

Thursday - A boat in the sky?

For an explanation of this last one, see Thursday's post on my Project 365 blog.