This shot was taken a few days ago during the full Moon with Spica, the brightest star in the Virgo the Maiden Constellation. This was also the smallest full Moon for 2016.
It was absolutely beautiful to watch the thin clouds above the peaks light up to a golden glow well before the rising full Moon made it’s appearance above the beautiful Needles located in the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado. The sun had set nearly an hour before but enough residual light remained to highlight the face of the towering peaks which nicely accented the fresh snow. As evident in the shot, many avalanches had previously roared down the steep slopes from recent wet spring storms.
The sunset on the clouds had faded away just in time for the full Moon to take over with it’s unique golden glow and that was when my shutter started clicking. I took 30 pictures and felt really good about it until the next day when I started editing the shots. I was greatly disappointed to find that all of the shots were out of focus except for one. The wind was blowing a bit, apparently enough for camera mounted on my tripod to move during the long exposure or maybe I was so excited to get the shot that I was careless on the delayed shutter release. Regardless, I was very thankful to God to have one shot that I could work with. It was an incredible evening to witness…
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