Brightly Shone The Moon That Night Though The Frost Was Cruel...

Merry Christmas!

The moon was indeed bright as it rose in clear skies Wednesday evening around 6:55 PM, December 22, 2010, and conditions were definitely frosty as the temperatures were in the mid-20s F. This view of the moon, a little over a day removed from being full, looks northeast from a former soybean field that is currently in transition to a new housing development just south of Boyson Road near Alburnett Road in Marion, Iowa. The "hill" in the foreground is dirt in the process of being graded for future construction. The moon is flanked by two lesser stars in the constellation Gemini at top. I needed to trudge through snow some 100 yards or more off Boyson Road to escape the interference of car headlights. This is a composite image with the moon being shot separately at 1/2000 second at f/5.6 with automatic focusing. The background was a 13-second exposure at f/7.1, manual focusing, focal length of 92mm and an ISO rating of 400.