Moon rising 1 colour

As I noted in my original post, last Friday evening I clambered up a hill just to the east of Alice Springs with a long lens and my best steady tripod and took some shots of the rising full moon.

I’d been out spotting just where the moon would be rising for a couple of evenings before to make sure I had the right spot–here is a higher hill just to the north but I’m unfamiliar with the rutty track that climbs up the hill and didn’t want to chance my truck coming down off there in the dark.

On those earlier nights the moon rose white and faded against the still sun-lit sky, but on Friday the sun had dropped a half hour before the moon, first a crescent peeking over the edge of the hill and then, as here a golden globe perched on the edge of the hill as if ready to roll back down into the valley.

It was only when I got home and realised that I’d been lucky enough to catch the moon at that point–and in its fullest tow-headed glory–that I thought I might have something close to special.

A couple of hours later I posted this photo and a few of its fellows here. And no, I didn’t photoshop them or put too much work into them. What you see is pretty much what I got.

A few hours later my old mate Rohan Barwick, the Drive show presenter on ABC Alice Springs 783 (the only town in the country where Local Radio is on the AM band and Radio National is on the FM band – go figure!) dropped me a tweet asking if he could post a link and photo at the ABC Alice Springs Facebook page.

Oh, well, can’t hurt I thought. The post had been travelling pretty well at The Northern Myth post and on Twitter so what the hey …

To my pleasant surprise by Saturday morning the ABC Alice Springs Facebook posts had, as Barnaby Joyce would say, “gone off like a frog in a sock” with 182 comments, 4,4oo ‘likes’ & 960+ shares and counting. Earlier this evening the ABC’s post–and a later re-post–had delivered a total of around 14,000 likes, 4,500 or so shares and over 600 comments – most of which were complimentary … typically “Wow”.

Not “viral” in the contemporary sense of that word but nice enough for me.

And I was more than a little pleased to get this note from Rohan Barwick when I arrived home this evening:

You’ll be pleased to know we’ve just got through the numbers for all the ABC FB sites around the country and your photo has come in at number 2 (after a post about Anzac Day on News 24).

The post beat 4 Corners, ABC News, The Drum and Rage.

Crazy!

Crazy indeed. All I can say is thanks to the ABC, Rohan Barwick and all of those who liked the photos and passed on their good words to me one way or another.

As a great man once said “I love youse all“.