Setting sun, mirages and a young crescent Moon

pyry

Picture a small group of astronomy enthusiasts climbing on top of a hill to catch a young crescent Moon. It's warm but the night is cooling. The Sun is touching the horizon as we reach the top and quickly set up for some serious landscaping...


A George Harrison song in reverse:



The colours were...



Enter the mirages, I love this undulating foreground



Another song goes "Shoot the Moon, and miss completely..."



And then finally, after tracking the Moon with binoculars and spotting scopes and waiting for it to show well enough to get a picture - faint and slim paydirt!



It was barely visible to the naked eye and you could only see it in the camera if you rocked it gently - otherwise it hid behind the matte screen.


There's not a whole lot of PP going on here, except the last one with heavier contrasts, but I have to admit to using a redhancer filter

Your turn, tell me what you think! :thumb

coscorrosa

I really like the first three shots (and the music references, strangely enough today I was thinking of all these songs with "Moon" in the title after listening to two of them in a row, weird) great color in the sky overall. The third shot might have been a little better with a split ND filter (so there's a little more pop and less noise on the trees in the foreground), but I still like it.

pyry

coscorrosa wrote:

I really like the first three shots (and the music references, strangely enough today I was thinking of all these songs with "Moon" in the title after listening to two of them in a row, weird) great color in the sky overall. The third shot might have been a little better with a split ND filter (so there's a little more pop and less noise on the trees in the foreground), but I still like it.

Thanks for the feedback

I did try a grad-nd, problem is that the one I have isn't nearly sharp enough to work with 400mm focal lenghts.

schmoo

Great colors in the sunset! I'm jealous.

I have to say, I do think the you'd have to be an astronomer to appreciate the moon in these. I saw the sliver at home but now I'm at work, the lights in my office are a bit different and all I'm seeing are the dust specks on my screen in your lovely red clouds

Still, I enjoyed your commentary and I do think some of the best experiences shooting are with others who are as enthusiastic as yourself.

pyry

schmoo wrote:

Great colors in the sunset! I'm jealous.

I have to say, I do think the you'd have to be an astronomer to appreciate the moon in these. I saw the sliver at home but now I'm at work, the lights in my office are a bit different and all I'm seeing are the dust specks on my screen in your lovely red clouds

Still, I enjoyed your commentary and I do think some of the best experiences shooting are with others who are as enthusiastic as yourself.

Thank you very much

Agree with you on the astronomer thing, except that they (I mean we) wouldn't hold that one very high either, we've seen better
We were struggling with this one all the way, but that was our goal and result so there it is then

Last summer a crescent just one hour older looked like this:



Now that is more like what we were after.

But the sunset was reason enough to be there