La luna è sorta

No one would consider my camera sophisticated nowadays (though it might have been a marvel a decade or so ago). Just a little Nikon Coolpix S210. Though it can do more, I mostly point and shoot.

That is prefatory to saying I wish I could share with you the sight that greeted me last night as I was coming home from my "night at the movies" and turned east way out on the west mesa. The gibbous moon seemed immense and close by, as though a giant dirigible were hovering over the far southeast part of Albuquerque. Perhaps, since it is Albuquerque, I should say an enormous hot air balloon, glowing in the night.

It was a pale shade, as though lightly washed with tangerine chiffon, and the features were clear.

I'm not sure I recall a time that the moon felt so very close. The effect was truly that of something right over the Rio Grande Valley and not somewhere out in space.

Anyway, I did pull over after turning into my neighborhood and took a picture. So here you are. No details, alas, but at least a sense of its prominence.



I am in love with the moon and have been since moving here.

--the BB