Lunar View Cafe – Dancing in the Dark of the Moon
[by Jack Foster Mancilla]
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There was a Moon
[by Jack Foster Mancilla]
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These two images were taken exactly seven minutes apart, on the same day, December 10, 2011, in Ocean Beach California.
It was my intent to wait until the moon got as low as it could, so that I could capture the Moon, the Pier, and the Surf, with maybe a little sand. Alas, it did not come to pass. We are all limited by external forces. 
I got there early, and used my compass and “The Photographers Ephemeris” on my iPhone to plot where the moon would actually set. The Moon would eventually set just right of center in these two images, if it could be seen.
That was the problem. I had forgotten to consider that the eclipsed moon is very dark, in contrast to the dawning sky. … So, as the sky lightened, the moon faded away. It faded away long before it even got to the fog bank that you can easily see in the second image.
I find it very interesting to open both these images in two separate tabs of my web browser then use my arrow keys to jump quickly from one image to the other to compare the height of the moon, and the lightness of the sky.
