Chasing Moonbows

Driving back ‘over the top’ across the North Yorks Moors on a dreadfully blowy, rainy Sunday evening, the first time feeling really cold this year. November 1st. My companion calmly commented on something in the sky. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have seen it through the rain and past the arc of the windscreen wipers.

It looked like the dome of a glow from some illuminated building at first, maybe a football stadium or trading estate. But then we realised it was far, far to big for that, and it was a band, in colours, an arc. And anyway, we were out in the wild, as I commented, in the UK’s equivalent of Area 51 near Catterick Garrison’s training moors. So what could it be? A moon rainbow! A bright full moon was lighting up the hedgerows and fields. The conditions were exactly right.

Lots of speeding 4×4s coming up fast on roads familiar to them, and not much in the way of passing places or laybys, it was hard to find somewhere to stop. We drove slowly on, buffeted by the increasing gale, somewhat dazed and amazed. A tripod would be no good in this weather, unless jammed into something. Minds racing, we turned around in the road, only to be greeted with the sight of a whole, uninterrupted arch right across the road ahead.

Film camera loaded with Agfa 400 ISO colour negative, zipped and hooded firmly into a windproof jacket, camera and body wedged at an angle into the crevice of a dry stone wall. A borrowed 50mm lens at F8, bracketing at 10, 20 & 30 seconds, there was time for four frames before the clouds descended.

This one shows a lump of stone from the wall in the foreground, illuminated from the car’s hazard warning lights behind, and has more colour in the sky. I rather like this one, the oncoming lights of yet another MPV.

They need rescanning, of course. These are just inspection scans and small sizes. I have an offer from a colleague to make some colour darkroom prints at some time in December. We’ll have something better to show then. Probably with prints for sale.

It transpires that a photograph of the moonbow from Richmond made the news that night We were too dazed and emotional to notice. It really was a very moving sight. The Times Online, Daily Mail, The Telegraph.

If you can’t see much of what’s in these photos, maybe try adjusting the brightness on your screen. This could help. The idea is to adjust so that you can distinguish every section one from the other. On my screen the two end blacks are too close to call.

The top two pictures in this post are from my cameraphone, a 2nd gen iPhone. The rest were taken with a trusty Nikon F80 and an old manual 50mm lens and developed & scanned by the delighted and very helpful techie at Asda in Hartlepool, who cleaned the machines when I told him what we’d (probably) got. That F80 performs really well in very nasty weather.

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