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Sunday, May 6, 2012

Super Moon, Lightning & bye bye Boulder






I'm leaving Boulder this week, for good. It's bittersweet: The fellowship I've been doing is over, which is truly depressing, but I'll be able to go back and be with my wife and daughters in Berlin again, which makes me quite happy. We're planning on returning to the American West in July, where I'll work with High Country News, but probably not in Boulder.

So, when I heard about the Super Moon, I knew I had to take the opportunity to try to get some photos, taking advantage of the aesthetic opportunity that the collision of mountains and plains affords here. So some friends and I hiked a little ways up the lower slope of Flagstaff Mountain, found some rocks to sit on (and to use as a tripod, since mine is in storage somewhere), and waited.

The sky was particularly dramatic, as a storm was moving in. The yellowish smog was thick. Vultures soared over Boulder. And when a breeze kicked up, we watched pollen billow out of trees below like smoke. The moonrise wasn't as dramatic as some I've seen -- rather than a gelatinous red blob, it was more of a pale specter pushing its way through the Front Range smog. And then the thick clouds swallowed it up. No worries, though, that's about when the lightning started way off to the East. Nice.
Smog, storm and pollen. Yes, pollen.
Vultures and Valmont power plant.

Sky

Super moonrise and hwy 36.
Moon and big big house above Chautauqua.
Just before the cloud swallows the moon.
Boulder at night.







Notice the strange electric ghost in upper right of center.