Moon Monday – The Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021

A couple weeks back, I mentioned I’d gone searching through my folders looking for pictures I’d taken of the moon during daylight hours, to switch things up a bit from my usual full moon posts, but I couldn’t find them. Still haven’t, as a matter of fact, but for today’s Moon Monday I have some new shots of the Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021 I managed to grab over the course of the late afternoon/night last Thursday. I also took a short video (about 20 seconds long) that I converted to a gif to show how quickly the clouds were moving across La Luna’s face when I first started snapping.

What is a Waxing Gibbous Moon, you might ask? Here’s a quick blurb from the website Moon Giant

Moon Phase on: April 22, 2021

On this day the Moon was in a Waxing Gibbous phase. This phase is when the moon is more than 50% illuminated but not yet a Full Moon. The phase lasts about 7 days with the moon becoming more illuminated each day until the Full Moon. During a Waxing Gibbous the moon rises in the east in mid-afternoon and is high in the eastern sky at sunset. The moon is then visible through most of the night sky setting a few hours before sunrise. The word Gibbous first appeared in the 14th century and has its roots in the Latin word “gibbosus” meaning humpbacked.

Speaking of the moon, I’m hoping to get out again tonight to get some captures of the Full Pink Super Moon to share for next week’s Moon Monday – fingers crossed the weather cooperates!

And my usual spiel before I get to the pictures – I’ve reduced the file size, and in some cases tweaked the exposure and/or sharpness a bit, but I haven’t filtered most of these, other than the instances where I mention I’ve dome some extra work to them. For the most part, the difference in the color of the moon (and sometimes the clouds around it) comes from zooming in and out, and bumping the exposure up and down, not from tinting it. It still amazes (and frustrates…lol) me that what I see in the sky isn’t always what turns up on my camera. These were taken with my my Nikon affixed to my tripod), in my Durham New Hampshire yard.

Okay, now on to the photos!

The Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021

Actually, a little bit of scene setting before I get started. Around 4:30pm I was outside with our dog, and because I’m trying to get better about taking my camera out with me, I had it hanging over my shoulder like a purse – Sandy (our Jack Chi) is a rescue and doesn’t take kindly to things like tripods being carried near him, so I left it inside. I was standing at the edge of the yard while he was sniffing ALL THE THINGS and I happened to look up and notice the moon was already up in the sky…


 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
1. It looks a bit more dramatic than this in person – in fact, I actually said, “oh, wow!” right before I grabbed for my camera. Since I didn’t have my tripod, zooming it didn’t work so well for my slightly tremory hands, so once Sandy was done sniffing, I hurried back inside to grab my tripod so I could take more shots.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
1a. Oh, and in case you had a hard time finding La Luna among the clouds, I did a fancy Spotlight filter with PicMonkey…lol

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
2. So as I was saying, I grabbed my tripod and headed back out. This picture is about 5 minutes after the first, and for the rest of the time I was out (probably another 10 minutes), the clouds never parted long enough for me to get another shot.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
3. About an hour and a half later, I went back out to try again. Still cloudy, but there were enough breaks in between for me to get some decent captures.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
4. And the clouds were so pretty it was hard to complain.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
5. Although it was a bit annoying to have a clear shot, then one second later, cloud covered again….lol

 
 
Here’s the 20ish second video I took, then converted to a gif, to show how quickly the clouds were moving past.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
6. But being patient paid off.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
7. I never get tired of seeing the moon against a blue sky like this.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
8. This was about another hour and a half later (just after 7:30pm) and I actually ran back outside because I noticed through the window how the clouds looked amazing lit up by the setting sun. But it took me a couple minutes to get outside, which was just long enough for most of the gorgeousness to fade. However it still looked kinda pretty.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
9. And it gave me another excuse to grab a close up…

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
10. … or two. Even though the sky looks darker here, it was taken literally one minute after the previous shot. I tried lightening the exposure a bit to match the other blue sky, but it looked weird. Which is a long-winded way of saying the color change is because of the zoom and not a filter…lol

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
11. I didn’t plan to go out again to take more shots, since the whole idea was to get some daytime captures for a change of pace, but just before we headed to bed (a little after midnight), I noticed how pretty La Luna looked, and stepped out onto the front porch to snap a few quick captures.

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
12. Funny how 6 hours can completely change her position in the sky!

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
13. The approaching rain storm meant there was moisture in the air, which created a beautiful, if subtle, rainbow ring around the moon. This is the unfiltered view…

 
 
Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021
13a. … but then I decided to up the exposure and play a bit with the sharpness to see if I could get a better representation of how magical it looked in person. While this is close, it still falls short of the mark.

 
 

Hope you enjoyed these shots of the Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 22nd, 2021!



Thanks for stopping by!




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My photographs are taken with my trusty Nikon,
sometimes utilizing my handy dandy tripod.
Blog graphics created on Canva

All words and images are mine (unless otherwise indicated),
and can also be found on my various social media sites.

Speaking of witch which…

 
 

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