Moonset on the Central Shortgrass Prairie

It was a gorgeous moonset on Pawnee National Grassland on Friday evening, here it is just before it dipped below those clouds for the last time.

Have you ever wished for a tool to tell you all sorts of info on when moonset, moonrise, sunset, sunrise, twilight and such are going to occur on any given night for any given location on Earth? What if I were to to tell you that such a tool exists (free!)? And to add to the its utilitiy, it can show on Google Maps the angle a sunset/rise/moonrise/set will be in, so you can plan for what day you need to be at a certain location to get your dream shot of the sun setting over a certain rock outcrop or so on.

I've been on a Beta test for this tool and after finding the application so useful I obtained permission from the software developer to share it with you here. Get your copy and read about the Photographer's Ephemeris here ( http://stephentrainor.com/tools ) ! Many thanks Stephen for sharing this with the photography community!

Shot Notes: light painting by a mega-strong LED flashlight. It was necessary to then change the WB in post to fluorescent (in Capture NX fluorescent daylight or meurcury vapor light are best). I then shot a second exposure for the sky after light painting and combined the two in post.

NightPawneeGrasslandPrairieCSPCentral Shortgrass PrairieNECOCOColoradoWeldLandscapeNatureStarsStarAstronomyMoonsetMoonlightMoonlitCloudsSkyTreeGrassGrassesLight PaintLightPaintingLEDNikonD300Glowgrasslands2009