Watching a full moon rising and setting

A phenomenon you must experience if you haven't...

My “Happy Place” is wide open space so at any given time, one can face the east and face the west and watch nature’s phenomena take place. For years now, I have enjoyed watching the full moon rise. The position for the rising moon turns bright like when the sun is rising and you suddenly see this huge ball arising. The color of that ball varies from month to month but it is consistently large as it emerges, then gets smaller but always shining bright as it rises up. Each month, I look forward to the day when it is full moon. Full moons also coincide with Indian festivals/special occasions since it is a lunar calendar. And my mother would always remind me when “Poornima” or full moon was approaching. And I guess I have always had this obsession for looking out for the full moon.

The full moon looks almost full a day before the official full moon. One of those days normally coincides with the sunset as in the sunsets a few minutes before the moon rises. Here is a video from a few months back.

One of the months that I took photos of the different stages as the moon rose from behind the hill. Notice the subtle changes in the first few.

Now contrast this with the almost full moon when the sun has barely set, it is twilight and the full moon rises as it did on the 2nd of August.

It is different, at the same time mesmerizing in my opinion. The last couple of months, a few friends have also got hooked onto checking out the full moon rise.

Just as fascinating as the moonrise is, so is the full moon setting in the morning. It normally sets after sunrise. Sometimes you may have to really search for it, given how bright it is. Here is the moon shining bright at dawn and then as it starts moving to the horizon to set (from the 4th of August).

Farewell, until the next month! Counting down until then and hoping I won’t have an evening meeting that will prevent me from going.

I would urge everyone to find a place near home where you can look out east to the horizon and watch the full moon rise. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

P.s. Here is a shot from the full moon day (not almost, on August 3rd) when it was dark…

Another p.s. On August 2nd, almost full moon, met a man with a beautiful husky; husky stopped to say hi. I got talking with the man as the sun was setting and told him the moon was going to rise very soon. Both he and the husky saw it. The next evening as I finished watching the sunset and moved up the trail, met the same person with the husky who asked me - what about the moon! I told him it was another half an hour. He had brought his family along to watch the spectacle! That is how addictive this is.

The first set of photos were on my DSLR. All others on my phone camera with no filters.