Watch the Moon Rise at Sunset Tonight, October 4, 2017

The moon will rise shortly before sunset tonight, providing a perfect opportunity to photograph the moon near the horizon at sunset.  Here are 38 degrees north it'll rise about 15 minutes before sunset, and be about 1.6 degrees high, or three moon widths, above a zero-degree horizon at sunset.

 

About ten minutes later as you may start to see the earth's shadow rise above the horizon, its blue color contrasting against the adjacent pink-orange last light of the sun in the "belt of Venus" effect, the moon will be about 3.5 degrees high, seven moon widths.



In apps such as The Photographer's Ephemeris and PhotoPills you can fine tune the times and moon direction and elevation for any shooting spot you might want to plan for.  Plan well enough, and you can anticipate compositions that place the moon reflecting in lakes, or beside or just over natural or man-made landmarks.



Similar opportunities present themselves on the opposite horizon with the moon set at sunrise, so look at your favorite astrophotography app and start planning! You can combine opportunities, such as catching a moon coming out of eclipse, as it sets behind a nearby ridge.



Or place the moon on a man-made structure like the tip of the Transamerica building in San Francisco.  I started shooting this sequence of images about 15 minutes ahead of time to show how the placement of the moon can be accurately planned in advance, and rendering the images as a time-lapse video lets you see the entire sequence:

As calculated, the moon ends up centered on the tip of the pyramid!

For a discussion of advanced considerations, read the article, "I've planned my supermoon eclipse shot: what could possibly go wrong?"

For a bonus on the tomorrow morning, I see in my SkyWeek+ app that the planets Venus and Mars will be within 1/4 degree of each other before dawn on October 5.  The StarWalk+ app shows me that they will be rising by about 5:10 am roughly due east.  Photograph them on and close to the horizon, then conditions should continue to improve improve by around 6 am as they're rising out of the thicker air and haze close to the horizon.  At that point they are still low enough to be captured in landscape shots as the oncoming twilight increasingly illuminates the landscape.  The sun rises close to 7 am, so they may fade as the sky brightens, and Mars in particular may be long gone by 6:30 am.



You never know what you might come up with.  A while back I shot the moon with Jupiter and Venus rising nearby, and my photo was used in an article by astronomer Don Olson of the University of Texas, in an article in the August issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine!

I haven't looked up the phase that Venus is in, but if you have a strong enough lens, youc an see that it's illuminated in a crescent phase.



The first step is to anticipate and plan for some great opportunities with the moon and/or planets. Then get out there and shoot! Tonight at sunset and tomorrow before dawn offer you a couple of good ones to start with. You never know what you might discover!

Eastern Sierra Photography Workshop in June: What's in Store?

“The Traveler sees what he sees. The Tourist sees what he has come to see.” G.K. Chesterton

I can only be in one place at a time, so I have to be efficient and pack as much opportunity as I can into my time in the field. Every day has the sun rising and setting. Some weeks have wildflowers. Fall colors may be peaking in a given location for only a few days to a week. The Milky Way is available during a few weeks of the year, a moon rise at sunset or moon set at sunrise about a dozen times each. So I pick a prime season, the most likely peak days and times.

Workshops take me out of the field as I work on permits, itineraries, write descriptions, set up payment / registration buttons, and I perform a some kind of marketing to get them seen, if only a mention or two on social media. I'm not going for volume, and I personally lead all of my workshops, so they are designed to place you in a stunning place, in a peak season, as the exact best time.

The first week of June is amazing for the Eastern Sierra for so many reasons. Some snow remains on the Sierra Nevada (and possibly the White Mountains) to catch alpenglow, and there can be a fresh snowfall around the end of May to refresh that surface. Several species of wildflowers are starting to bloom, profusely in some areas.

This year the new moon and Milky Way shooting timing coincides with this week, and we have the possibility of a late spring storm from the northwest for interesting sunrises and sunsets, or warmer monsoon moisture from the Baja coast that could bring dramatic afternoon clouds, showers and rainbows, or evening thunderstorms.

I used to be nervous about the thunderstorms interfering with night photography, but I've learned through experience in Bodie and the surrounding area that convection-driven storms tend to break up or blow east by the time the sky is fully dark around 10/10:20, so they're really just bonuses for sunset and twilight shooting, even when rain showers interfere locally for an hour or so (and even then they often give way to rainbows).

Tioga Pass may have just opened and we may have interesting iceout conditions on the lakes. More often than not the pass opens in May, so with 89% snowpack, the odds are good for a normal, mid to late May opening. It seems like they often try to wrap up whatever road maintenance is needed in time for an opening for Memorial Day weekend, so I'm going to guess Friday at noon as the official time, but cars line up early and they often let them in around 9 am.

We'll start with a sunrise on Thursday, pursue wildflowers and weather during the day, have an early dinner, and head back out for sunset at Mono Lake.



We'll pick from a number of spots for Milky Way shooting, and arrive by the time it's fully dark at 10:07, when the galactic center of the Milky Way has already risen 6 degrees, perfect for placing it in our compositions.



Friday we'll catch sunrise at Mono Lake before the weekend crowds arrive, shoot different wildflowers, maybe explore some interesting geology or head up to Tioga Pass if its open for snowier views. Another sunset spot, More night photography, and turn in not too late since most of us are continuing on to Bodie the following night, and Bodie interiors the following morning.



Plans are all well and good; I frequently plan something as simple as a sunset moon rise composition weeks in advance.  But landscape photography is about light, so if you're on a workshop, you want a leader have enough depth in detailed regional knowledge to be ready to ditch all plans and react to the weather and light if there's more potential 20 or 30 miles from where you are.  So leave the tourists behind who are stuck to their fixed agenda, and rather than a traveler who reacts to the weather and looks for a place to shoot it, you can travel with a local who knows the opportunities in every direction, and anticipates the conditions before you pick the next destination and hop in the car to arrive there just in time.

Early June in the Eastern Sierra offers an annual convergence of so many factors which could make photography conditions stunning.  Photography is more fun shared, so I can't wait, and all the better that I get to share all of this bounty with old and new friends!



Most of the participants are returning customers, but we have room for one or two more if anyone's interested!





Connect with or contact me in all of the usual places for photographers: Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, 500px, Tumblr, or my Web site.

Stunning Sunset Mono Lake Moon Rise Coming December 24

Mono Lake moon rise November 16, 2013

A few times each year, the moon rises at just the right time to be visible during sunset, while there's enough light on the landscape to capture that in the photo as well.  That will happen this month on December 24, Christmas Eve.  I'm not suggesting that you ditch the family to go chase the moon, just step outside at sunset, look to the east, and you'll have one more reason for the night to be a particularly memorable one.

If you might also want to photograph the moon, I've collected some notes on this blog post that I started in 2006:

How to Plan Great Full Mooon Rise and Set Shots
http://activesole.blogspot.com/2006/11/plan-ahead-for-great-full-moon-rise-and.html

I'm not sure if we'll head down to Mono Lake.  I've been going there for decades and my kids have been going there for all of their lives, so it holds a lot of sentimental value for us. It's pretty close by, so if the weather is nice, we may head down there.  The light could be particularly nice around: 4:35 - 4:55 pm.  Ping me on social media if your'e down there, in case we're standing a few feet down the shore from each other!

Mono Lake moon rise November 2010. How to plan great full moon rise and set photos: https://t.co/yKX1p2lNvt #Canon pic.twitter.com/taLY0bi1qv

— DSLR astronomer (@DSLRastronomy) December 11, 2015

Full Moon Rise at Mono Lake in January

When I arrived to shoot the full moon rise over Mono Lake in January, there were 4-5 carloads of photographers capturing the sunset, but none of them were there for the moon rise.  Having planned the shot in advance using +The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE), I told them to stick around for another 10 minutes. 
It was fun hanging out with +Amy Heiden +Tran Mai and +Lori Hibbett in the Mono Basin for the day.  There was fog on the lake all the way through 3 pm, but fortunately it cleared just in time for the moon rise.  When we arrived at the Old Marina site +Blair Pountney joined us.  He had seen my notes on the coming moon rise last week and drove up from Bishop.  Then we ran into +Travis Theune and +Schmoo Theune of Smugmug, so we had a fun little group of photographers gathered, from various parts of the state!

I captured about 400 images, enough for this time-lapse video.  I had problems with a light tripod in the intermittent gusty wind which developed, so the result is pretty funny.  After the moon rise, Amy, Tran, Lori and I went on to shoot into the night by the light of the full moon, so check their streams in the coming days for night snowy landscape shots. I decided that meeting Travis and Schmoo was a great reminder to update my Mono Lake gallery on +SmugMug (I'm not as diligent about that as I should be), so if you're curious to see more of my work from Mono Lake, here's the link to that gallery, where you can see a larger copy of this image.

Mono Lake moon rise January 2013.  See a larger copy (or buy prints) on SmugMug.

If you'd like to plan your own sunset full moon rise shots, here's my blog post on planning to shoot sunset moon rise events using TPE:

Put Sunset Full Moon Rise Dates on your Calendar
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2010/12/09/put-sunset-full-moon-rise-dates-on-your-2011-calendar/

Here's one of my blog posts on creating time-lapse videos:

Create a Timelapse Video on Your Digital Camera
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2011/08/01/create-a-timelapse-video-on-your-digital-camera/

Thanks to astronomer +Philip Plait for blogging about my moon rise coverage on his +Bad Astronomy blog on +Slate magazine.  He provides a nice diagram explaining this "Belt of Venus" pink over blue light that you get at Mono lake after sunset: Moon Rise over an Arsenic Lake.

In the past he featured the sunset thunderstorm I caught in early 2012, as well as my lunar eclipse timelapse video on his Bad Astronomy blog on +Discover Magazine.

He also featured the Perseid meteor shower in 2008 shot in California's Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest:
The Perseids, Writ Large
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/08/25/perseids-writ-large/

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Fall Colors Progress in the Mono Basin Area

Using digital photos I've taken in the Sierra Nevada over the past 8 years, I'm working on a project to examine how Fall colors progress in various sub-regions of the Eastern Sierra. The area centered in this album is centered around the Mono Basin

I'm collecting in an album images taken during the Fall in that general area, from Mammoth Lakes through Bridgeport. This is a work in progress; I'll gradually add photos from other years/dates, but follow this link to see what I have so far:

https://plus.google.com/photos/107459220492917008623/albums/5789566211029414833

I've include other photos from the area in October because photography in this area is never just about one thing, even during Fall color season!

So far it looks like the images are mainly centered around the October 6-22 period.  

For the latest conditions in 2012, here are some links to Fall colors reports:

Mono Lake Committee Fall Colors Report
http://www.monolake.org/today/2012/09/26/late-september-fall-color-update/

Parcher's Resort Fall Colors Report
http://parchersresort.net/fallcolor.htm

California Fall Color
http://www.californiafallcolor.com/?p=2027

So far it looks like June Lake hasn't really started turning much yet, so we may need until that Oct 13-21 timeframe before this area gets really good.  Bear in mine that storms can wreak havoc on the leaves, so it's better to be a little early than too late!

Olmstead Point Dawn Full Moon Set

Olmstead Point Dawn Full Moon Set, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

In late July I positioned myself to catch the full moon rising at Mono Lake. It had rained during the day, but as I sat on the porch of the lcoal coffee shop waiting to see how the weather woudl turn out, it was clearing up nicely for sunset, and hopefully the moonrise. One of the nice things about photography is that the people really into it are a pretty relaxed and sociable bunch. I ran into filmmaker Tom Lowe at a coffee shop in Lee Vining, and he was heading out to Mono Lake as well. A young woman with an accent had shared the table and power for her laptop, and not knowing the area, when she heard we were going to a nice sunset location, she decided to follow along in her car.

We drove south out of town, and as I turned left onto a shortcut, Tom missed the turn and kept going towards the standard highway 395 to highway 120 route towards South Tufa. The woman, Rotem Retter from Israel who had come to the U.S. after serving in the Israeli Defense Force, made the turn. By now a large rainbow was forming in the remaining showers over the Mono Basin, so I stopped at a turnout near another photographer's car. This turned out to be Ron Wolf. We had seen each other's work on Flickr, but had never met.

As I continued on, I decided that the clouds would obscure the moonrise, but they were well posisioned for shooting sunset at South Tufa. I called Tom with the update, but by now he was already set up elsewhere, and decided to stay put.

The clouds were fine for sunset, but as i had suspected, they were too thick to allow the rising moon to show through. This is why it's critical to try to shoot as many sunset full moon rises as possible in a given year... there are only a dozen or so to start with, and weather will obscure many of those!

No problem... I could still catch the moon set at dawn. After having the June 26 partially eclipsed moon set at Olmstead Point behind a nearby ridge before it woud have set on the horizon, I decided to shoot this moonset there as well, so I could find a better shooting position that would enable the sunrise to proceed further as the full moon set.

It turned out even better than I could have planned. The sun was sending light rays over the Eastern horizon, while the moon acted as a gaint reflector, sending more of the sun's rays radiating back from the Western horizon.

I had high expectations for this sunrise, or at least high hopes. After all, I had looked up the moonset and sunrise times a week or two in advance, checked sun and moon angles for various locations in The Photographer's Ephemeris to select my shooting location, gotten up at 3:55 over by Mono Lake to make it here in time, and to place the foreground hill out of the way for the moonset I decided to hike up the granite slope across the road instead of down to Olmstead Point. To do this landscape photography thing right, it's a far cry from just arrive, point and shoot!

"A lot of people think that when you have grand scenery, such as you have in Yosemite, that photography must be easy."
- Galen Rowell

I continued to shoot as the clouds and light changed, and there were some majestic juniper trees on the hill which added nice foreground subjects. But I was done by 7am or so, with no plans for the day.

As with the prior sunset Rotem had decided to check out my shooting location, and having hiked Mt Dana the day before, she was eyeing Mt. Hoffman today. I had no plans for the "boring" mid-day light, and the trailhead was only a couple of miles away, so this time I tagged along.

After we moved food and scented items fomr our cars to bear boxes, we got an early enough start to reach May Lake while I could still catch a reflection with minimal wind.

The entire hike is only a 6 mile round trip, but the trailhead is at 8710 feet and you end up at approximately 10,850, so it's a healthy climb. I'm never particularly fast lugging 10-12 pounds of camera gear plus 3 liters (another 6 pounds) of water, but it's an enjoyable hike with a nice view.

Unfortunately there was a fire somewhere which cast a haze in the air. With the distinct possiblility of afternoon thunderstorms, after some rest and chatting with other hikers on top, while protecting day packs from persistent marmots wanting to steal food, it was time to make a hasty descent.

Storm Clouds Over The Mono Basin

Storm Clouds Over Mono Craters, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

On this afternoon I was eager to head over Tioga Pass to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, but as I drove north from Bishop in the Eastern Sierra and entered the Mon Basin, there were some nice storm clouds building over Mono Lake. That's too nice of a photo opportunity to pass up, so I turned on highwya 120 towards Mono Lake's South Tufa access.

When I arrived at the South Tufa turnoff, it was clear that the majority of the clouds were well East of the South Tufa site, so I took a right fork in the dirt road to head out to Navy Beach, where I could place sand tufa formations in the foreground of my shots.
After taking a variety of shots I resumed my course towards Yosemite, but upon reaching the highway 395/120 intersection just South of the town of Lee Vining, a rainbow appeared over Mono Lake. If I could reach the Old Marina access point just north of town, I could adjust my position to place the rainbow over the tufa offshore there, and zoom in to get a ncie composition and to make the rainbow major elements in the photo. The rainbow came and went for a few moments, and then was gone. Fortunately I had arrived just in time to capture a frame or two with the image that I had anticipated.

Fiery Mono Lake Sunrise

Fiery Mono Lake Sunrise, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (actually indoors for a couple of da.

I camped on a sagebrush-covered knoll overlooking Mono Lake with an expansive view so I could easily assess the prospects for a great sunrise early the next morning. As I had anticipated, the heavier storm clouds from the night before had broken up somewhat, leaving interesting clouds for the sun to light up but also leaving enough of an opening to the East to offer the promise of sending the orange sunrise light shooting in under them.



I moved quickly to get dressed and drive over to the South Tufa site with enough time left over to alk to the lake before the best light arrived. When I arrived, the parking lot was empty! The Sierra Nevada however already ahd a deep blood red tint on them, so there was no time to waste. I half walked, half jogged to the lake. It was tempting to start shooting immediately, but I watned to get a timelapse sequence going a couple of coves over, so I made my way over there as fast as I could.

Return of the Flies

Return of the Flies, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Mono Lake today).

Alkali flies are hatching by the millions on Mono Lake, and they're just starting to form a thin black line around the lake with their bodies. By fall they'll be as dense as 2 or 3 feet wide, but Mark Twain mentioned that they were 6 feet wide around the lake when he visited.

Storm over Mono

Storm over Mono, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Truckee today).

There have been great clouds in the Mono Basin over the past couple of days. Now that the lake is warming, there's also a lot of algae growing, but the brine shrimp and alkali fly larvae aren't present in large enough numbers to keep up with it, so the water is a very interesting emerald color.

My day started near Mammoth Lakes in the Owens Valley. I was exploring some salt falts and enjoying the sunrise color on the Sierra Nevada.

An area of dried, cracked mud provided nice foreground detail for some vertical images.
At this point I had been working straight for minutes, so I decided that I needed a break, which I took in a nearby hot spring (it's a tough job, but someone has to do it).

While the morning air remained still, I stopped by some nearby vernal pools to see if I could catch a reflection of the Sierras. At one of the bigger ones was lined with a reddish algae, which contrasted particularly well with the blue sky and white clouds and snow-capped mountains.

Later in the morning I met landscape photographer Bill Wight to share a few of my "secret spots" in the Eastern Sierra with him, and to try to scout out a few new ones for the landscape photography workshop we'll be leading here June 3-6. Many sagebrush stripes and undercarriage drags later (my minivan doesn't have the clearance of his pickup truck, but that rarely stops me from trying), we had made our way up to Mono Lake and explored several of the less visited and lesser known sites.

First we focused on the exotic "sand tufa" limestone formations which form as calcium-laden water runs through sand.








The sand tufa structures look like intricate and delicate sand castles rising as much as 3 feet out of the ground, up to several feet across.
By this point clouds were building in the sky, so I suggested an area which would provide many opportunities to catch reflections. I experimented with my circular polarizer, using it on some shots to maximize water color and minimize reflections, then rotating it to still help with cloud contrast and definition with minimal interference on cloud reflections (as shown here).

Some of the reflections were found in side pools featuring salt-crusted, cracked mud... a great foreground!

The wind was still up as susnet approached, so I selected a site that would be fairly protected by the wind but still have a decent view of any remaining clouds to the East that might catch color as the sun set. The color show to the East wasn't as intense as I had hoped, but we had completed a long productive day of exploration and photography, so I couldn't complain.

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