Back from The States, also, moonbow poll

[ravncat]

Hey all

Had a great trip with my wife to the US. Looking forward to going over the pictures and generally being around the forums a bit more often - haven't had a chance to check over the last two weeks.

(My ego wonder's if my absence was felt and hopes it was missed. hahaha) But all in all, I should have a couple interesting photos to share soon. - By the way, Moonbows are tough - but totally well worth the timing. I need to write a tutorial post about them, I think.

[JFSanders]

Glad to see your trip went well and you made a moonbow image. Can't wait to see it.

Jim

[DanielLane]

see and shoot moonbows here on Kauai all the time. They literally happen at least every other month or so, sometimes more often than that. they are very cool. Interesting to shoot though. I'd love to see how you shoot one.

Oh, and which kind of moonbow are you talking about? the one that is the rainbow ring around the moon or the full arcing moonbow (like the daytime ones) except at night. We get the arcing ones here every other month or so. The ring around the moon is most nights.

[ravncat]

For those that don't know, a moonbow is a rainbow caused by moonlight. I think the circular ones are called "moon dogs" and around the moon, usually when there is some light cloud cover or high humidity.

I managed to get to the right place at the right time - I didn't use the photographer's ephemeris but I could have, I would have if I had had my iphone with me! Instead I had to guess, given the time of moonset and using a compass - but I'm trained in astronomy so it wasn't too hard

Here are links to two other posts I just posted, an SYS post and a Critique post - I'd write up a tutorial, but I still have some things to learn myself as I had some exposure issues - which I want to discuss in critique - so hopefully that will happen.

Moonbows at Letchworth (SYS)

Moonbow (Critique)


For those interested - definitely check out the photographer's ephemeris, the app is paid, but I think that the pc version is free. http://stephentrainor.com/tools I've included a screenshot below for my case - and added some text in white. The photographers ephemeris is a good tool to figure out where the sun/moon will rise and set - when you'll get astronomical / nautical / civil twilight, and where the sun and moon will be during the day. It's set to a map or terrain drawing, and takes height of the landscape into account which is really really useful. It's great for planning. In the shot below - you'll see that I care about the moon's position - I wanted it across from the mist where the sun causes a brilliant rainbow at the middle falls in letchworth state park NY.



Really to shoot a moonbow you just need a full moon (or close to full, it was a few days away from full) on a clear night with lots of mist. Bright moon will do it. You also need the moon to be at a good angle - usually you'll find the moonbow in about the same place as you'd find the rainbow - it changes with the moon angle of course.