Full Moon Rising – Mont Salève

A simple plan: cycle up Mont Salève to see the Moon rise. Sunday night met all the requirements:

1) A full moon.
2) A “moon rise” occurring soon after sunset.
3) Perfect weather.
4) My local mountain has a great lookout.

The moon would rise from the south, thus over Mont Blanc and the Alps, and I was uncertain how long it would take to appear over them. So my plan was to reach the summit an hour after the rise time.

I cycled up the steep north-west side of Mont Salève. It’s the same side that the Steel Wheelers cycle every Wednesday evening. If you want a challenge, you’re welcome to join.

For details of the five road bike routes up Mont Salève see here. For the mountain bike routes see here.

The crazy-steep hairpins are wooded and it was after sunset, so this the view behind me (note, I am IN this photo):

As I arrived at Col de la Croisette, above the tree line, the moon was clear in view. Thus, I could have arrived earlier. But, it was spectacular. I continued on to the lookout.

I reached the lookout and tried various photo settings and setups, and soon realised that I have absolutely no idea how to take an in focus, up close photo of the moon – especially with my favourite portable camera. I’ll do a little research for next time. Regardless, some of the photos turned out OK.

Note, many of these photos used a long exposure. No issue with a bike and a tripod. But when I am in the photo I needed to stay very still. Sometimes I did well, sometimes less so. 😉

I soon realised that any shots of me moving/cycling were impossible:

I have taken endless sunset photos from Mont Salève, it was fun to finally try some moon rise photos.