November 13 & 14, 2016
Seems all moon rises are great, especially a full moon, and maybe it’s just me, but my views of the Supermoon rising just don’t look very huge. Plus I’m such a novice at taking night photographs. I keep trying because practice makes better. So… I read about camera settings. I checked out this really cool site, the Photographer’s Ephemeris, which shows exactly which direction all the moon and sun rises and sets are for whatever location I want. Of course I did forget to take vegetation in consideration. And then there’s the 4200+ foot (1280 m) Bradshaw Mountains to the east making for a higher horizon line than shows on my Google Sky phone app. But all in all… I took 100s of photos and got a few that aren’t too bad. Like I said, practice makes better.
The first night, November 13, I didn’t wander far from home. Structures behind the trees to the right are in the RV Park where I live.
I kept checking the app, looking at the moon below the horizon, and trying to guess its trajectory to set up foreground. Hoped it was a hillside. Then I waited. No hillside. Still I waited. I waited about 20 minutes beyond the predicted moon rise. And got trees.
Which turned out to be rather fun as I moved around just a bit for different patterns in front of the moon.
The following night I drove to the nearby post office with a large and safe parking lot and a better open view of the mountains. Very quiet place. This is ranch country and I love to see the windmills.
Unfortunately I couldn’t line it up with moon rise. So I focused on the nearest hilltops instead. And waited. Sunset was soft due to lack of clouds. Venus and Mars glowed bright. I’m not very good at waiting.
Eventually a light glow appeared and I snapped off a lot of fuzzy pics of that. Suddenly the moon crested the hilltop and my camera settings were entirely wrong so all that can be seen in photos is a glowing white blob. By the time I made adjustments the moon was clearly visible. Surprising how quickly it rises.
A night light on the building behind me cast an interesting shadow and caught me in the act.
Wonder if I’ll still be around for the next really big one in 2034. And if at 80 years old will still be able to hold the camera steady. 
Linked to Skywatch Friday