I set out the can camera and opened the hole at Cochina Beach around 5:45 pm, expecting the moon rise at 5:50 as advertised. It was fairly dark and a bit cold and windy. The moon was a no-show. This didn’t make sense, as the horizon seemed clear over the Atlantic. I waited and waited in the dark, shivering a bit. Finally, after studying the scene, I decided this was no photo. The scene was nothing interesting. I originally only wanted a decent exposure of the moon over the water. But standing there in the cold wind, and knowing that if I let the camera go all night I would have to come back before sunrise, I covered the hole and walked back to the car. I circled the parking lot for a couple of minutes, checking out future scenes, when I noticed the orange moon breaking through some clouds on the horizon.
Back to the beach, I planted the camera in a new location, with a small sand hill and some vegetation in the scene. The moon was still fairly low, so near the start of the rise – around 6:00.
Moon is a waning gibbous
88.509% illumination
15d 19h 2m since new moon
Sun rise/set: 6:53 AM/4:53 PM
Nautical Twilight rise/set: 5:52 AM/5:54 PM
Moon rise/set: 5:50 PM/8:45 AM
The resulting image was too dark.