The nearly Full Moon rising behind the West and East Mittens and Merrick Butte (right) at Monument Valley, on the Arizona/Utah border, on April 3, 2015, on the eve of a total lunar eclipse at dawn 12 hours later. I shot this just before sunset, so the Sun is lighting the buttes. The Moon rose about 30 minutes before sunset so it was up by the time the Sun actually set. Note how the shadows are pointing to but not exactly at the Full Moon, as being well before the total eclipse alignment the Moon was not yet opposite the Sun. This is one frame from a 360-frame time-lapse sequence.
The March 5 “mini-Moon,” the apogee Moon, the most distant Full Moon of 2015. I processed this image with greatly enhanced vibrance, saturation and contrast to exaggerate the subtle differences in colour in the lunar maria, due to differences in the mineral content of the lava flows that formed the mare ~3.5 to 4 billion years ago. The relatively new impact crater, Tycho, is the bright area at bottom (south) on the luanr disk with bright splash rays emanating from the crater. I shot this with a TMB 92mm refractor with a 2x Barlow lens for an effective f-ratio of about f/12. This is a 1/125th second exposure at ISO100 with the Canon 60Da.
