Yosemite Falls Moonbow Light Trail 16mm Star Trails

Timelapse video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD1cJzsTHMo

Since 2019, I've had the idea of photographing a moonbow on Yosemite Falls while a hiker created a light trail up the trail next to it. My first attempt at this shot was canceled by the pandemic, and then the next few years were too dry for good moonbows. This year's record snowpack finally enabled this photo.

I wrote a Python code to predict where and when rainbows and moonbows could be possible. This involved some fun spherical trigonometry and vector math that I hadn't needed in a while. I was worried that I might have made an error and a whole group of people might make a trip based upon my erroneous predictions. Fortunately, my predictions were accurate, the moonbow appeared right on schedule, and it lasted about 20 minutes when viewed from Sentinel Dome.

Jon-Kyle Mohr and I carried six cameras up to Sentinel Dome, across the valley from Yosemite Falls. Griff Joyce and Mark Vierra, of the Half Dome 50/50/50 adventure and the Yosemite lunar eclipse trip, hiked up Yosemite Falls at the right time. An 82% moon illuminated the scene.

Clouds obscured the sky above, blocking the moon, and filled the valley, blocking my view of the falls. Following some desperate prayers, they cleared exactly as the moonbow occurred. The photo was possible after all!

I stacked a bunch of 30-second exposures to produce the light trail. A single exposure was used for the moonbow.

Taken in: United States / California / Curry Village (show map)

Taken on: May 31, 2023

Tags:

yosemite

national park

moon

moonbow

rainbow

night

stars

star trails

star

trail

hike

hiking

light

long exposure « less

Sets appears in: • Yosemite • Favorite Night Photos

Groups appears in: • High Sierra • yosemite more » • California • U.S. National Parks • Mountains • Landscape Exploration • Landscape Astrophotography • Into the Night Photography « less

Camera: Sony ILCE-7M3, f/3.2, 30 sec, 16mm, ISO 1600 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony ILCE-7M3
Lens:	FE 12-24mm F2.8 GM
Aperture:	f/3.2
Exposure Time:	30
Focal Length:	16mm
ISO:	1600
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 24.5 (Windows)
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