Consolation Prize.

I’m a loser, Baby, but don’t kill me just yet.

After getting skunked in my quest to capture a full moon photo Wednesday night I thought I’d get up early enough Thursday to catch moonset.

So with only four hours sleep I popped out of bed at 5am, microwaved a mug of joe and headed for the high country.  A very hazy moon was just ducking below the hills to the west, and I figured if I hustled I’d have a clear view of the horizon as Luna took her last bow.

But “clear view” was the kicker; turns out my hazy glimpse of Her Fullness was to be my last for the day.  The western horizon was a solid mass of clouds, and though I got to the vantage point I’d planned on, there was nothing to be seen of her.

All was not lost, though – I’d noted that sunrise would be about an hour after moonset, giving me enough time to get across Florida to Whitcomb Summit to catch that phenomenon, if indeed it was worth catching.  For some reason that spot has yielded some of the most amazing raspberry skies I’ve ever seen in the East, and most especially in winter.

I wasn’t disappointed.  The eastern horizon was just cracking a wry red smile as I arrived, and I had time to set up and snap away until I got this:

It was another iteration of the corrugated clouds of the night before, painted pink through a fortuitous gap between Heaven and Earth.

I did nothing to that shot in post-processing other than to bring the levels up; the clouds were moving quickly and a long exposure wouldn’t do, so I under-exposed it at two seconds.

As consolation prizes go, I was satisfied with this one.

Then I was off to brew a fresh pot of coffee and pitch another porch full of firewood.

G’Day!