Moonset
We spent the pre-dawn this Utah morning wandering along the edge of the always compelling and ever-crumbling cliffs known as the Skyline Rim or Moonscape Overlook, so known because the blue-gray badlands flooding the valley several hundred feet below appear as one imagines the moon's surface itself might look to a fortunate astronaut from such a vantage point. The lunar illusion was broken that morning, however, by a pleasing array of thin streaks of clouds, but those same clouds gave us hope that we'd see a colorful sunrise from our eastward-facing clifftop perches. And, in fact, it was a nice sunrise over the moonscape, enough so that I didn't even think to look around much for several minutes until the sound of footfalls crunching in the gravel behind me caused me to glance back over my shoulder toward Caineville Mesa and Factory Butte prominently visible a few wide miles across the desert plateau to our west.
What I saw at that glance was, as you see, quite an attractive happenstance of alpenglow, distant haze, and a crown of cloud wisps, all brightened in ephemeral shades of pink. And there too was the moon itself, nearly set. I whirled around and jammed on the long lens, stopping down as I often do to extend the exposure some, and opened the shutter. I got this shot and two similar others in about a minute's time before the color faded, and I'm glad I did.
Thanks for viewing.
Moonset
We spent the pre-dawn this Utah morning wandering along the edge of the always compelling and ever-crumbling cliffs known as the Skyline Rim or Moonscape Overlook, so known because the blue-gray badlands flooding the valley several hundred feet below appear as one imagines the moon's surface itself might look to a fortunate astronaut from such a vantage point. The lunar illusion was broken that morning, however, by a pleasing array of thin streaks of clouds, but those same clouds gave us hope that we'd see a colorful sunrise from our eastward-facing clifftop perches. And, in fact, it was a nice sunrise over the moonscape, enough so that I didn't even think to look around much for several minutes until the sound of footfalls crunching in the gravel behind me caused me to glance back over my shoulder toward Caineville Mesa and Factory Butte prominently visible a few wide miles across the desert plateau to our west.
What I saw at that glance was, as you see, quite an attractive happenstance of alpenglow, distant haze, and a crown of cloud wisps, all brightened in ephemeral shades of pink. And there too was the moon itself, nearly set. I whirled around and jammed on the long lens, stopping down as I often do to extend the exposure some, and opened the shutter. I got this shot and two similar others in about a minute's time before the color faded, and I'm glad I did.
Thanks for viewing.