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Linda Roy Walls
Centreville, MD, USA
I was headed to my mom’s house near Centreville, MD and noticed a larger than normal full moon rising in the East. I realized it was the night of the Supermoon and the total moon eclipse (January 20, 2019). I pulled into my mom’s rural driveway and could not take my eyes off that moon. Of course, it would have been great to get some photos, but my preparations were lacking, other than my camera sitting in the car seat beside me. It was about 10 degrees outside, not counting the wind chill. I was able to position myself for a shot from my car. I had no tripod and realized my reading glasses were not with me. I used my car window partially raised as a tripod and tried to adjust a few settings on my camera, but could not see very well since my glasses were missing. As I was trying to prepare my camera, I heard a mass lifting of snow geese from a nearby field. They were very vocal and easy to track by ear, but I could only see a few flying overhead. Soon after I took a deep breath and started taking photos of the moon, trying to keep my camera steady to capture a few of the moon details (like the large crater called Tycho). Since I was without glasses, I could not see how the photos were progressing until about 25 minutes later when I went into my mom’s house with my camera and I borrowed her reading glasses to review the shots. To my surprise, I found that there were about five shots (of the 75 I took) where Snow Geese had flown across the light of the moon – and both the moon details and the silhouettes of the geese were fairly sharp. What a happy accident!
Category 7: The Unexpected
Tag:
Snow geese flying into the light of the 2019 Supermoon (prior to the eclipse)
Great shot! And without glasses…..impressive dedication
Thank you Cristina!
Lovely shot, especially under the circumstances!
Beautiful
It comes as no surprise that with all of the ‘hurdles’ to overcome you still produced a magnificent image.
Amazing shot! What a moon.
You captured a majestic moment…simply beautiful!
Wow, what a shot of a beautiful moon. Love that you were able to capture the flying geese in front of the moon . Amazing
Fantastic shot! Well done!
I had a similiar experience many years ago. One winter night, just about Christmas, I looked up into the east sky to see a VERY large moon at about 10 o’clock above the horizon and frozen rooftops. Suddenly a string of what APPEARED to be SANTA’S REINDEER came across the moon from south to the north at a speed that suggested I’d had too many hot chocolates laced with peppermint schnapps! As my mind spun. I quickly gathered my senses and realized it was a line of 10-12 geese. Had the kids been in the car with me, I’d have reinforced the legend of the Ol’ Spirit of Giving. What the heck, I’d a had nothing to lose and a plate of warm cookies and one more hot cocoa ( with peppermint schnapps) to gain!
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