moonrise

It took maybe another 10 minutes for the moon to rise over the

horizon, but by then the stars were all but washed out. Thank you for

viewing. You comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

Great sky and you caught just enough of that setting sun to produce that  nice path.Well done!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

Your timing was immaculate!  The exposure has worked really well allowing a natural looking gradation in colour and light whilst retaining enough darkness for the stars to stand out.  Was this one of a series of shots that you timed until it was perfect, or did you manage to get it right first time?

Compliments! 

Alf 

Thank you Laurant!

It's actually the moon, not the sun. I was out taking pictures of the Milky Way, and towards the end the moon began rising behind the mountain. The show had started maybe 15 minutes earlier, when the moon was still way below the horizon, but illuminated a cloud behind the mountain. This was the final image of the evening.

Hi Alf,

Thank you for your kind comments. I wish I could say: "Yeah, I just stepped out of the car, walked over to the beach and snapped a few shots... this one was actually the worst." :-)

I had spent quite some time at the dock photographing the Milky Way. That was maybe an hour after sunset and way before moonrise. To take the pictures the tripod was almost up to the head in the water, and I was lying on my stomach on the floating deck. (To avoid the trees growing on the shoreline.) I must have taken maybe 100 images. Many have some nice lightning from a distant thunderstorm at the horizon (which looks just like distant city lights :-( ). I worked myself up to some workable shutter speeds over the first few shots and used the live timer for these moonrise images. With a halfway decently adjusted LCD screen and the live histogram you can see the image develop and call it quits at any time.

The moon announced itself about 15 minutes before it rose over the horizon, first through a gentle glow only visible in the images, then by illuminating clouds at the horizon, and finally reaching the horizon itself. Once it was up it was not very spectacular any longer. It was only half full and some clouds and haze muddied the image. Time to go to bed.

I darkened the blacks a bit in PS and fidgeted around with the noise. My OM-D EM-1 is not the best camera for star photography, and I don't have a standard way to process those rather noisy images. Downsampling definitely helps.

I must say though, I spent a few wonderful hours watching the stars, and the moonrise was a welcome finale.

Christoph

Thank you for taking the time to explain your experiences. The live histogram sounds like a very useful feature, kind of takes the guesswork out of long exposures, and the results speaks for itself.

Cheers! 

Alf 

I think your efforts were worth it Christoph. It really is quite beautiful. As Alf pointed out, the timing seems near perfect. I find the clouds in the sky to be really interesting. It almost looks like some 'being' was moving it's hand over the whole scene below. You got some nice captures of stars. Very nice result!

Thank you Gail. Yes, the cloud made me stay a little bit longer. It was more pronounced in earlier images, but this one had the best balance between stars, cloud and moon.