Seven shots of the Waxing Gibbous Moon July 20th 2021

It’s been a minute since I’ve done a moon post. In fact, the last one was back on April 22nd, when I also featured pictures of a Waxing Gibbous Moon. However last night (July 20th 2021), for a brief moment in time, the near continuous rain we’ve been getting here in the Northeast stopped, the sky cleared, and an awesomely bright orange nearly full orb appeared in the sky. I managed to get a few dozen pictures, and picked the seven best to share today.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten these too, as a few hour later, we got hit with a massive (and somewhat scary) thunderstorm. And lucky that given the near continuous lightning, and thunder that sounded like the sky was splitting into a bazillion pieces, that we didn’t lose power or have any damage (like downed trees or big branches) to the property. I usually love thunder boomers, but this one actually had me considering if we’d all fit (one dog, two cats, and five humans) in the basement crawlspace of our house!

As for why it was orange, the not-so-awesome reason is the current rash of wildfires in the Western part of the country. While I’m not happy that rain is in the forecast for the rest of the week (up to and including Friday, when the Full Thunder Moon happens), it’s hard to complain about all the precipitation knowing what’s going on elsewhere.

Oh, and to explain what a Waxing Gibbous Moon is, here’s the definition from the MoonGiant website –

July 20th 2021

Yesterday 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.

Visit the July 2021 Moon Phases Calendar to see all the daily moon phase for this month.

Lastly, my usual spiel before I get to the pictures – I’ve reduced the file size, and while I sometimes tweak the exposure and/or sharpness a bit, this time I left them alone, to (hopefully) better showcase how the natural tinting came out. These were all taken with my Nikon affixed to my tripod), in my Durham New Hampshire yard.