September 11 at Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook

This ain't no Moonrise Over Hernandez

Yesterday, I invited some friends to join me at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook to shoot the moon.  I knew the conditions were not going to be very good, but it would get me (and maybe some of my pals) out there with a camera.  And parking on Jefferson would give me a little exercise, too.

The only confirmation I got was from Peter and we met in front of the Victor Wire Company and walked up the trail with a little time on the stairs. We looked at the view from all the switchbacks, from the former picnic area (see previous post) and from behind the visitors center. While we were speculating, Steve and Virginia joined us - Woo-Hoo! Long-time, no-see those folks.

Steve convinced us that the only place to shoot is from the overlook platform proper. So that's where we landed and that's where Cullen found us - Woo-Hoo-Hoo! We had a small crowd gathered.

I was right: conditions were pretty bad.  You can see here the gunk in the air that hid Ms. Luna for some time until she could rise above it.  See how the atmosphere gets thicker to the right (south) of Downtown?  Well, Ms Luna was coming up even further south.

Finally, Peter set up and made a gigapan and I broke out my tripod and made a few moon shots while playing with the settings on my camera.  I was very surprised that I could capture as much texture in the moon as I did. I was using my old Minolta Dimage Z5 5.0 megapixel with 12x optical zoom on my funky little Slik tripod with a little no-name mini ball head.

Steve declares that tomorrow will be the better day to shoot the moon, but I don't think so.  He's thinking he'll have to check it out. If you see this in time, you might take a trip to BHSO, too.  Me? I'll be at a birthday dinner slurping noodles.