The rising Full Moon of January 6, 2023 over the Badlands of Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumheller, Alberta. Here the Moon is set a dark blue crepuscular ray (or more correctly, anti-crepuscular ray) converging on the point directly opposite the Sun. The ray was a shadow cast by clouds in the west, which parted enough for a few moments for the setting Sun to light the foreground, making for a colourful contrast between ground and sky. This is a single exposure with the Canon R5 and Canon RF100-400mm lens at 236mm. Most processing in Adobe Camera Raw with ground and sky masks. A mild glow layer added to the ground in Photoshop with Luminar Neo.
The rising Full "Wolf" Moon of January 6, 2023 over the Badlands of Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumheller, Alberta. The sequence demonstrates the changes in colour of the rising Moon from atmospheric absorption, and changes in its shape from atmospheric refraction. This night the Moon was full almost at the same time as it rose from my location. However, the Moon's high northerly declination — it was about 4° north of the ecliptic — meant that it rose far to the northeast and some 30 minutes before the Sun set, despite the Moon being opposite the Sun. As such, even for the last shot, with the Moon several Moon diameters in altitude, the Sun was still up and lighting the landscape. In fact, at that time the Sun broke through clouds in the southwest to light the foreground with warm light. In this blend, the ground and majority of the sky comes from the final image with the highest Moon and warmest landscape lighting. For the earlier shots the Moon came up in a very bright sky. And so, to better represent the scene, some of the sky coloration — the magentas and cyans — comes from earlier exposures blended in with broad-brush masks. Dark anti-crepuscular rays also added subtle sky colouration and bands of darker blue. This is a sequence of 9 images at an interval of 2.5 minutes, extracted from a set of 80 frames taken every 15 seconds with the camera on automatic exposure, as the sky and ground remained bright enough for an accurate meter reading. The first 8 Moons are masked and layered in with a Lighten blend mode. All images were the Canon R5 at ISO 125 and Canon RF100-400mm lens at 281mm and f/8. Most processing in Adobe Camera Raw with ground and sky masks. Glow and dynamic contrast filters added with ON1 Effects plug-in.
The rising Full Moon of January 6, 2023 over the Badlands of Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumheller, Alberta. Here the Moon is set in the pink Belt of Venus and with dark blue crepuscular rays (or more correctly, anti-crepuscular rays) converging on the point directly opposite the Sun. The rays are shadows cast by clouds in the west, which parted enough for a few moments for the setting Sun to light the foreground, making for a colourful contrast between ground and sky. This night — and this year — the winter Full Moon (popularly called the Wolf Moon) was at a particularly high declination north of the ecliptic, about 4° above the ecliptic. So it rose more to the north than it normally would. This geometry is evident here in that the Moon lies well above (north of) the point where the shadows are converging to, which would be the position of the anti-Sun point on the ecliptic. This was the night of the Full Moon — in fact, the time of Full Moon almost exactly coincided with moonrise for me. However, the high declination of the Moon meant it rose about 30 minutes before sunset, so it rose into quite a bright sky, and was well up by the time the sky darkened enough to show these twilight colours. The next night the Moon, now a day past full, rose 30 minutes after sunset into a much darker sky. This is a single exposure with the Canon Ra and Canon RF70-200mm lens at 94mm. The red-sensitive Ra helps bring out the Belt of Venus colours. Most processing in Adobe Camera Raw with ground and sky masks. A mild glow layer added in Photoshop with the Radiant Photo plug-in.
