Category Archives: Moon

12 Moons of 2014

Moon Photography is quite a passion of mine, as anyone who follows this blog, my Twitter or Instagram feed will know quite well, to the extent it’s quite a fetish. For my one and only Moon blog of 2014 I thought I’d share my favourite shots of 2014, but this wasn’t an easy task to whittle down them down from 25 to 12, the last 18 where all worthy participants of this post, but I’ve ruthlessly got my final selection ready… Enjoy

No:1 | Double Crescent

The first visible moon of 2014 was quite a special one, a Double Crescent, as you see Venus in the lower right also in crescent, and a shot that was quickly sinking into the horizon and clouds.

No:2 | Triple Conjunction

There was a lot of Twitter chatter about this conjunction of the Moon with Venus and Mercury, and for this pre-dawn occurrence, I think I set off at 4:00 to set up in my favourite dark sky field, although I wasn’t alone in this pitch black field that morning, it was full of cows and their steaming leftovers. Luckily my head torch seemed to keep them away from me thankfully, although my phone going off at about 5:00 did cause a stir amongst them, it was ❤️Wifey panicking that I wasn’t laid beside her in bed, and who seemed quite bemused that I was in a Cows field in the dark. The conjunction didn’t disappoint when it appeared.

No:3 | Eye of the Moon


A cold cloudy evening mixed with full moon can cause some magical colours emanating through the clouds if you capture it through a gap, this one looks like a beady eye, even better when duplicate and flip it… Scary!!

No:4 | Saturn Conjunction

The Saturn Conjunction was captured whilst sat a beach bar in Spain listening to some live music, I had a pocket tripod perched on the table to get this, although there is some slight movement in the shot.

No:5 | EarthShine Moon

Generally a dawn or dusk shot, and I’ve taken quite a few, but I love the colours this one captured.

No:6 | Moon Jet


One of favourite moon shots to capture if a jet plane streaking across it, until last year it was a bucket list shot and you can see the results of my first capture in my Moon Jet Blog.

No:7 | Nebula Moon

I loved how this almost looked like the Rose Nebula as the colours vignette through clouds.

No:8 | Early Bird Moon

The early bird catches the moon, timing is everything for this kind of shot, or pure fluke if you’re me 🙂

No:9 | Storm Moon

The moon was quite absent from the night sky the weeks prior to getting this shot, which summed up the mood of the prior storms.

No:10 | Fire Moon

A tyre dump was on fire the east of Leeds, it provided quite an atmospheric backdrop the that nights full moon.

No:11 | Hunters Moon

The Hunters Moon that I captured on the 8th of October was named by the Native Americans for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer is looking plump, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. Because the fields were traditionally harvested in late September or early October, hunters could easily see fox and other animals that came out to grace on the fallen grains. It’s also know as the Harvest Moon and historically accorded with the special honour associated as the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox, and marking the start of the feast day of Harvest Festival, traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the Harvest Moon.

No:12 | Mountain Moon

And finally, one my photography bucket list shots to capture was a full moon rising over a mountain, so with a bit of planning I caught the final Supermoon rising over the mountains over Mazarrón Bay in Southern Spain.

A little video to end with of No:4 | Moon Jet

The Hunger Moon


After what has been another cloudy month with little or no viewing of the moon, it was only on its final days that I manged to capture the February Full Moon. This is traditionally called the Full Snow Moon by the native tribes of the north and east because of the usually heavy snow falls in February, but for me the name some American tribes referred to this Moon that I like the most is The Hunger Moon, namely because of the harsh weather conditions in their area that made hunting very difficult

These are just two of the Full Moon Names for February, but as you can see from below the list goes on…

  • Colonial American Trapper’s Moon
  • Chinese Budding Moon
  • American Indian (Cherokee) Bone Moon
  • American Indian (Choctaw) Little Famine Moon
  • American Indian (Dakota Sioux) Moon of the Raccoon, Moon When Trees Pop
  • Celtic Moon of Ice
  • English Medieval Storm Moon
  • Neo Pagan Snow Moon
  • Micmac people in eastern Canada Snow-blinding Moon
  • San Ildefonso of the Southwest Wind Moon
  • Kutenai of the Northwest Blackbear Moon

February full moon can assume any number of different names, and the list could go on and on the further I dig into the history of Full Moon Names, maybe I’ll show more when the Storm Moon of March 2013 appears… or as some call it The Death Moon

Wolf Moon

After not seeing the moon in hardly any of its glory for the whole of January amid these cold and deep snows of midwinter…”at last” I’m glad to say, that on its first Fullcast of 2013 she reveals her ‘Full’ glory over Leeds for me to capture… I hope those wolf packs are howling hungrily outside their Indian villages tonight, thus giving their name to this January full Moon. Although sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule, some also called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon….lets hope we see the Snow Moon in February, but until then, lets howl at this majestic Wolf Moon.The 1st Fullcast of 2013

Church Bell Moon

Church Bell Moon
Church Bell Moon [Click to Enlarge]
In the midst of a really busy night yesterday chaffering the Girls to their separate party destinations and also getting wifey and her sister home safely, I managed to grab a bit of ‘Me-Time’ with trusty the camera in a field within the middle of nowhere, namely St Mary’s Church near Saxton (Lonely Church). But this time it was at night and -2 degrees, the field leading to it had suffered from the floods recently so they had turned to these amazing Ice Ponds illuminated by the Moon. The night sky was also an added bonus with Jupiter so bright and Pleiades & Orion so vividly clear. Continue reading Church Bell Moon