JPG: Stories: Photo Essay: Moon over Red Rock, Las Vegas, Nevada

Moon over Red Rock, Las Vegas, Nevada

By .Rich Silva

3 Oct 2007

I set out during my lunch break to Red Rock Canyon National Conservatory Area, a 15 minute drive to a local national park where I sometimes eat lunch at the Red Rock Vista. I had my camera gear and hopped onto the trail head that starts at the scenic overlook.

Walking down the trailhead from the vista, I took a few pictures here and there. I got to a wash at the bottom of the trail and had a great view of the surrounding Mountains rising up from the desert floor. After setting up my tripod, I took a shot.

The next day, I was showing the picture to a colleague, who is also a fellow photo enthusiast. He said it should have been a black & white. I agreed with the reply that "Ansel Adams would have had the moon somewhere in the picture."

So that night, I sat down with Photoshop and made my own Ansel Adams's knock-off by incorporating two pictures that I took -- one from my lunch-time jaunt and the other from a Moon-shot taken a few weeks back. The resulting image is pretty good, and to the laymen the picture looks real.

However, I knew this image was a knock-off. I wanted the real thing. So I went to the U.S. Naval Observatory website, which told me when the Moon would be setting early in the morning. I wanted the sun to rise in the east, while at the same time, the moon to set in the west.

With the moon setting in the west, it would put the moon just over the Red Rock Canyon mountain range and the sun would already be up in the east illuminating the rock face. Thus, I could take the shot with the larrge rock face brightly illuminated and have the moon in the shot. According to the U.S. Naval Observatory website, this was to happen September 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th, with the 7th being the "Full Moon" day.

Typically I take the boys to school in the morning at 7:30 am so I couldn't get to Red Rock in time for the shot I wanted. Today (Saturday the 9th), however, I had to go into the office to work on a critical document. But just I was heading out the door, I grabbed my camera gear -- just in case.

Driving west on the Las Vegas southern beltway (I-215) from Henderson to my Summerlin office...there it was and you couldn't miss it! The Moon was starting to set behind Red Rock. The observatory website described today's moon as:

"Phase of the Moon on 9 September: waning gibbous with 94% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated."

I turned off at the Charleston exit and headed west to the Red Rock Vista overlook, rather than continuing on to work. One has to set their own priorities after all. The timing for the moon-set was perfect. I performed the same motions as I had done weeks before. I took a couple of pictures on my way down from the overlook to the wash.

I then took these shots near the same place where I took the landscape portion of the picture for the knock-off. As opposed to the knock-off, these pictures had the real moon in them. I was able to pull off the "Ansel Adams" moon over Red Rock shot.

The resulting images were near perfect. However, forest fires locally and to the west in California had put some haze into the sky and the moon wasn't as crisp, sharp, and defined as I hoped.

Oh well, my perfect "Ansel Adams" will have to wait. I packed up my gear, headed up the trail, hopped into my truck, and sped off to work.