Moon Rising

In March we had a close encounter with the moon. Not too close but closer than we will be for a very long time. I was in New Mexico at the time and decided to watch the full moon rising over the Sandia Mountains from my plot of vacant land on the slope west of Bernalillo.

I don't have a camera that is designed to take low light pictures or one that can accurately focus on the moon or anything else up in the sky. I tried to take a picture of Mars once and it looks like a dot. So, anyway, I decided that quantity might be almost as good as quality so I took three cameras.

Since prior experience kept my expectations pretty low I wasn't too disappointed. It had been a windy day so there was a lot of dust in the air and a few clouds. At first there was a reddish glow shining behind the mountains and then the moon started to rise above the mountain tops. This turned out not to be the Sandias but more likely the Cerillos Hills or maybe the more distant Ortiz Mountains. The town of Bernalillo is small enough that the lights added some interest but didn't interfere with the view.

Having a tripod would have helped but that would have required more advance planning.