Snow Moon - First Supermoon of 2020! February 9th 2020 - Yolo County, California

 Another outing with the Olympus camera Test and Wow program.  This time I wanted to see how it held up in low light by shooting the supermoon.  To be honest, the resulting photos were a bit noisy.  But let it also be known that I am hit or miss when it comes to night shots.  lol  But that won't stop me from trying!  

But usually I  do some research and refresh my memory on settings and tips.  But on this trip, I didn't really do that because I didn't even have a tripod available and just kind of decided to head out on the spur of the moment. 

I had one main target.  The Milk Farm sign off Interstate 80 in Dixon. 

This is an historic landmark of sorts which was almost demolished.  But it still stands to this day and most folks probably drive by without even much of a glance. 

The Milk Farm Restaurant - which the sign originally heralded - was built in 1928 and was featured in the famous Saturday Evening Post in 1940 which kind of put Dixon's dairy industry in the spotlight. 

I remember stopping there on church outings back in the 70's & 80's (even though now it seems like that is just a hop, skip, and jump away so it's weird that we always were ready for a rest stop at that point back then!)

And then it closed in 1986, the year my daughter was born, due to serious wind damage.  But residents of Dixon didn't want it destroyed, so the building was dismantled and placed in storage and the sign was left standing!

It has a cow jumping over the moon and I thought it might actually frame the supermoon and look cool!  But!  I needed a lot of things to happen right for the perfect execution.  And it didn't.  haha

But to start, I pulled over at the Yolo Basin Wildlife Area (where surprisingly the gate was open) to see if I could get a photo of the moon over Sacramento with some water.  

Again, no tripod so I shot all semi-longer exposure by putting the camera on the roof of the car.  :-)

I propped it at the right angle by using my fleece jacket.  :)  Luckily the moon was pretty low to the horizon in all of these shots. 

This first one was a closeup of just the moon with the 300mm lens.  It was super, super noisy!  I used DeNoise to try to tone it down with mixed results. 

A slightly less cropped version with less noise. 

I kind of like this one shot between two trees! Noisy, but looks cool. 

And now!!  The famous Milk Farm Sign!

And the story is that I sat here in my car - in some driveway to a farmhouse (which was pretty long so I didn't have anyone wondering about me - or so I thought).  I sat there for quite some time waiting for the moon to rise high enough to get over the sign and HOPEFULLY be in the right spot.  

It was a little bit cold and a little bit scary, but I was just off the freeway so I didn't think a serial killer would get me.  

But!  I think I was even more nervous when California Highway Patrol car pulled up and parked just off the road kitty corner to me.  After about 10 minutes, the car started up and pulled closer to me and the copy put his spotlight on my car.  He walked over and I, slightly embarrassed, explained what I was trying to do. 

He said he was on his lunch break and said he would hang around to make sure I was okay.  I, again slightly embarrassed, told him that I would just leave because I had taken some test shots of the sign illuminated by my car's headlights and it wasn't really bright enough to see the sign.  

He very sweetly offered to put his car spotlight on the sign so we gave it a try. 

It worked!  Kind of!  It was actually even better when the moon was above the sign (which took about 10 more embarrassing minutes) and the sign was not so backlit!  With both my headlights and the spot light this time, the moon DID align how I had hoped and I was able to get a shot that is halfway decent!!

The Moon Jumping Over The Cow Jumping Over The Moon over the Milk Farm!

I used post production in Photoshop to lighten the sign a bit more and bring back some detail in the moon, but having the CHP spotlight on the word "Milk" really helped me achieve my whimsical dream.  :-)  

The very nice CHP officer and I parted ways after I promised to drive safely back home.  He seemed quite amused that I had driven 20 minutes and sat in my car for about 20 minutes to get one crappy photo!  lol  

xoxo

Super Blood Moon - The Aftermath! St. Sava Orthodox Church Jackson, California

I love night time.  I've always really been a night person and just love to be out and about in the beauty of the darkness with the stars and moon shining above me.  That's one reason why I get so excited about lunar events like super moons and eclipses.  

This month was no exception as we experienced the Super Wolf Moon a couple weeks ago.  But I had some real, REAL! technical difficulties so I decided to edit some more photos from last January.  Haha!

This post kind of piggy backs on my trip to Mendocino for the Super Blood Moon, so I will post up the links here for that trip.  Be sure to check them out because it was an amazing trip full of beaches, flowers, and adventures!

The Super Blood Moon and Bowling Ball Beach at Sunrise

Beaches of the Mendocino Coast and the Gorgeous Birds that call them Home

Oh So Amazing Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

Dragons, Bugs, and Fuzzy Flowers

Beautiful Food Photos at the Gardens By The Sea

I got some amazing photos and had a wonderful trip, but I've got to admit that every time I go on a road trip for a Supermoon, I have misgivings once it's over.  I always worry that I didn't get good photos or wonder if I should have done something different.  

In this case, I had thought about a trip to Jackson, California because I thought it would be cool to get photos of the moon with the beautiful St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church there.  So a couple days later, I realized that the moon was still Super, even if it was no longer bloody! (Okay, that didn't sound right.)

So I made the relatively short drive to Jackson, got set up beside the church, and started snapping away. 

The church is on a narrow street which has a hill on the side the church is on.  There are some steep steps leading up to a sidewalk that runs just in front of the beautiful cemetery.  

Day or night, this is one of the most gorgeous churches and cemeteries I've seen.  I need to go back during the day and see inside if that's possible. 

Pretty soon the moon began to rise, almost directly behind the church!  My plan worked!  (So many times it doesn't or I don't follow my plan, more accurately, and then get myself in trouble.)

Okay, I'm not going to lie (and you can probably already tell!) but that's a composite I did of two photos.  I'm not skilled enough to get truly clear pictures of the moon with the church clear too.  But I did get some excellent shots of both!

The moon is a little misshapen because this was a few days after the full moon as these were taken on February 2, 2018.  But the craters are spectacular detail in some of these shots!  I amaze myself with my amateur equipment sometimes. 

I did get one awesome shot of the moon and you can see the roof and monuments from the cemetery too. 

But it was too difficult for me to get detail in the moon when zoomed out.

This was the more normal result. 

Here's another weird one.  But I like weird.  It looks fuzzy and almost painted and yet there is some detail in the moon and the church shows (at least part of it) so I'm happy with weird art.

This is the beautiful entry gate; built in 1894.  

This next one I shot from across the street.  I had to shoot from the side, so everything first appeared crooked.  I had to straighten then and in doing so, cropped off some of the wide views.  I'll have to go back and see if I can get some shots with the stairs and other angles. :)

And, last but not least, a couple of final rudimentary composites!

xoxo

Nikon D3300

Food and Water at Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens

Before we get started, here are the links to check out the rest of the series from my January 30, 2018, road trip to the Mendocino Coast to experience the Super Blood Blue Moon.  

Blue Moon!  You caught me dancing alone...  

We've got beaches in mind...

Mama liked the roses...

Gathering flowers for the Master's bouquet...

Yes, those are all actually lines from songs that match the subject of the post.  Haha

Anywho, I was very excited to see that the Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden has a section dedicated to growing food!  There is a garden at Oakland's Lake Merritt that also has this and it's really fun to go and see how beautiful food is when it's growing.  

So I've devoted this last post to the food garden where I got some amazing macro shots that might make you view the food in the produce aisle in a slightly different way.  So much beauty and plenty in this world that we sometimes take for granted.  

In addition to the food, I decided to include shots with water in them.  I left a couple in the other posts because the focus was more on the flowers, but I definitely wanted the majority to be with the food as these both sustain God's creatures.  So let's get started. 

The first photo is water on blue and purple leaves. 

Next is a dewy spider web above some bushes. 

I've got to say, I'm really happy with these extension tubes!  I was really concerned because they are only manual focus and my eyesight is TERRIBLE.  So I worried that I might not be able to tell when things were in focus.  But I did pretty well, if I do say so myself.  

One of the most beautiful veggies in the grocery store or in the field/garden is Rainbow Chard.  

I love this next shot.  The water is so pretty and shimmery and there's good depth of field so some of the water creates natural bokeh.  Lovely. 

Love these too because the Lacinto Kale has perfect little cubbies for the dew drops to settle in. 

So cute!

Ruby Chard

Red Leaf Lettuce

I'm not sure what this next one is, but it sure is pretty!

As is this stunning purple cabbage with it's green and purple outer leaves that you don't normally see in the market. 

Okay!  Last photo from this trip and I confess it really doesn't fit this post!  haha  

I'm pretty sure it's a succulent and not food and there is no water visible.  

But!  

It reminded me of the old "two peas in a pod" saying so I thought I'd just go ahead and drop it here.  

💚💧

xoxo

Nikon D3300

Super Blood Blue Moon January 30, 2018 - Mendocino Coast

So last January, we had a lunar event that I was really excited about.  The Super Blood Blue Moon.  So quick (and basic) lesson:

Super = The moon is in an orbit that brings it close to perigee.  That's the closest point to Earth of the moon's orbit.  To be considered a Super Moon, the moon must be full and be within 90 percent of it's closest approach to Earth.  This makes the moon look bigger than usual - especially when it's close to the horizon. 

Blood = Eclipse!  When the moon is in the path of the sun's shadow (created by earth coming in between the sun and the moon).  I think to be a blood moon, the eclipse has to be a total eclipse.

Blue = The second full moon in the same month.  Unfortunately, nothing to do with actual color. 

Moon = An astrological body that orbits Earth.  

It's not something that happens every month or even every year.  In fact the next Super Blood Blue Moon won't be until January 31, 2037.  And the last one was in 1844!  So I was trying to figure out the perfect place to get some amazing photos and I narrowed it down to two options due to the time/location of the moon at the eclipse:  San Francisco or the Point Arena Lighthouse.  I wasn't sure if the sky in San Francisco was going to be clear of fog and also waiting to long to narrow my choices.  And I was also worried that in the Bay Area, traffic can prohibit you from moving locations quickly if the one you're at isn't working.  

So I chose Point Arena, as I thought that it could be a cool thing to situate my shots with the tall lighthouse in them.  BUT!  I neglected to check to make sure it would be accessible.  And it wasn't.  lol  They were having an event and therefore had blocked off the parking area and road to the lighthouse.  

But more on that later.  I STILL got some pretty awesome pics as I'm good at going with the flow on my road trips.  So on to the pics!!

First I stopped at this cute little village called Fairytale Town.  

The moon wasn't eclipsed yet as it rose above the forested hill. 

Haha!  Just kidding!  Actually, there was a fallen tree stump in my apartment complex that had these cute mushrooms growing.  I had recently bought a lunar lamp and thought I would try to create a cute fantasy shot.  It was fun but people were looking at me weird even though it was after midnight.  lol  

To start my trip, I took a couple shots of the moon which had recently risen over my town.  This first one is how Camera Raw edited the shot in auto.  I thought the green ring looked pretty cool, so I just took it as is and didn't make any adjustments.  :-)

But here is the second shot with my basic edit.  All the closeup shots were taken with a 300 lens and then cropped a bit.  These were taken approximately 1:30 a.m.

I drove about 2 hours until I hit the coast before I stopped again.  At this point, the partial eclipse was just beginning.  This is a color photo but no red could be detected at this time.  Time approximately 3:50 a.m.

I reached Point Arena at about 5:04 a.m., but couldn't find my way to the lighthouse!  Usually my memory of roads and directions is very good, but the dark really through me off.  I went down this road thinking it looked promising. And it WAS!  For seeing FOXES!  Which were too fucking cute!  I saw about 5 of them believe it or not. But they were pretty quick and I was driving so no pics. 

And then I came around a corner and saw this view.  So I pulled over and snapped a couple pics, trying to get the tree branches and stars in it.  It's the almost eclipsed Super Blue Moon!  Woot Woot!

My exposure time was a little too long so the stars are little trails but not really star-trail-ly enough to look cool.  lol  But the moon looks good!

So then I finally found the lighthouse - and that it was closed.  So I found a little spot on the entrance road with this cool tree and snapped a couple shots. I actually illuminated the tree with my car headlights.  Smart, huh?

One of the cool things about a total eclipse is it's the only time to get a shot of the full moon along with a lot of stars.

Again with the mini-trails!

The next photo was taken just after mid-eclipse at approximately 5:31 a.m.

After this, I headed over to Bowling Ball Beach which is a really awesome sight at low tide.  However, low tide was at about 2:30 a.m. and I actually did stop and start the hike there, but chickened out.  It was freaking dark!!!  And scary!  So no.  That will be another trip when low tide is not in the middle of the night. 

But it was a great setting to watch the Super Blood Blue Moon set into the Pacific Ocean.  And, it was a bit lighter.  So I braved it.  It's a nice little walk and I reached the cliff above the ocean in about 15 minutes. 

This photo was taken at 6:51, about 1/2 hour before the partial eclipse phase was supposed to end. 

7:02 a.m.

7:11 a.m. black and white of Bowling Ball Beach and the last bit of the eclipse.

7:12 a.m. Technically, the eclipse was supposed to end at 7:11, so either it didn't or my times are a bit off.  Could be both honestly. 

Some of the views around me as the sun started to rise in the East. 

The moon was now tinted by the sunrise in the East.  I actually had to reduce some of the yellow/orange glow it was reflecting!  This was at approximately 7:16 a.m.

This next shot is my tripod on the grassy steps of the trail on the cliff.  I took the above shot handheld (I think - this is really why I need to do my edits and post much sooner so I can remember this stuff! and then took the shot of the tripod to show my vantage point. 

Now the eclipse is over and the Supermoon truly looks huge as it hovers over the ocean!  Once thing I didn't realize was how distorted it became once it got close to setting.  Interesting.  

And then it was gone.  Disappearing into the purple fogbank.  

But my day wasn't over yet!  I hiked back to the car and then headed to Fort Bragg to look around a bit.  We'll get there in my next post.  

Oh, and there is another Super Blood Moon coming up on January 20, 2019!  This one is a Super Blood Wolf Moon.  The Wolf part comes from Native American lore where wolves could be heard howling at the full moon in late winter.  This will be the last total lunar eclipse visible in North America until 2027, so be sure to plan your evening!  This one also happens at around 9:00 p.m. I believe so you won't even have to stay up all night!  But be sure to check your local listing...errr....Google it. 😜

xoxo

Nikon D3300