Ring Around the Moon

"Ring Around the Moon" is the name of a Dan Fogelberg song and also the subject of some photographs I took on an October evening.



In order to show the ring, the moon ends up being very overexposed. That's why I used the trees to partially block the moon.

The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of moonlight through ice crystals suspended in the upper atmosphere. A moon ring or moon halo will always be roughly the same size - 22-degrees across the sky - because the crystals bend the light at a 22-degree angle from their original path.

In the photo below, the condensation trail from a jet is cutting across the halo. The contrail actually moved quickly across the sky.





Here's another photo that includes a basketball hoop. The backboard was lit from lights on a school playground.

Sunday night lights

I shot the photo below after an Orange County Youth Football League game in Otisville, N.Y., on a Sunday night.



The sky didn't look that dramatic at the field, but I stopped on my way home when I saw this view. I only got a few frames off before the lights were turned off. I was glad I had a tripod in the car. The exposure was 0.4 seconds at f2.8 at 800.



Here's what it looked like with the field lights off.

Chasing rainbows

I spent some time chasing rainbows in Middletown, Montgomery and Hamptonburgh a few weeks ago. Here are some of the photographs.



The photo above was taken at my favorite rainbow and lightning spot in Middletown, N.Y. The following three pictures are from Pleasant View Farm in Montgomery, N.Y., about 25 minutes away.







The final picture was taken at Stony Ford Golf Course in Hamptonburgh, N.Y. I was hoping to find some golfers on the course, or at least a flag on the green. About 10 minutes later, as the rainbow started to fade, there was lightning in the distance. That would have made a nice picture.