Catching the Moon

Just before the hype about the "super moon" started, I stumbled upon a very interesting website, the Star Circle Academy Meet Up, hosted, amongst others, by Steven Christenson.
Fascinated by his photography and the prospect of "catching" the moon right where I want it, let me sign up for last months "Huge Moon Effect" workshop.
Together with other "moonatics" or maybe rather lunatics, if you consider that I had to get up at 3.30 am, we met in Berkley to photograph the setting moon over the Golden Gate Bridge. The following three images are from that outing:

Unfortunately it was rather windy and it was really hard to get a sharp image with the long (400mmm) lens...

...and of course the fog rolled in...

But it was nevertheless a great experience and well worth the early rise. Steven had calculated the spot to be with an accuracy that was amazing. And not only that, included in the workshop also was a webinar about how one can figure out these places.
Needless to say that it is highly mathematical, but with the directions given in the webinar and a wonderful program called "The Photographers Ephemeris", even I could figure out where to be this month for the moon set of the "super moon", well with a bit of help from Steven that is...;-)
So I tried again, this time without the wind:

And it wouldn't be San Francisco without at least a tiny bit of fog,

which lets the Golden Gate Bridge almost hover over the bay.

Inspired by the success of the early morning and with another good location tip in my photo bag, I went out again in the evening to catch the rising moon.

Again it was a bit hazy, in fact we almost missed the rising, as all of a sudden it became apparent, that it wasn't the haze behind the skyline, but a huge emerging moon.

To enlarge an image, just click on the image.

On the long and steep way back to our hard-fought for parking spot, I caught this last image.