Rain – or perhaps more likely, virga – catching the western light over the southern ridge of Disappointment Valley from about mid(ish)-Spring Creek Basin. None of that for us yesterday, but we have chances today and Saturday.
How often do you get the rising moon and a rainbow (and not a moonbow!) in the same image? I actually don’t know, but both are visible in this pic … though both are extremely faint and hard to see. The rainbow is nearly impossible to see – at the right side of the pic, nearly vertical – and it was suuuuuuuper faint in reality, too. But as I was nearly stumped (again!) by clouds to see the moonrise, I shot it anyway. 🙂
But the MOST crazy pic of last night:
I’d love to say I planned the above image … but I didn’t! I was taking pix of the moon, high in the sky, between cloud layers (! can’t we have some rain, please, with those clouds??), and the plane photobombed my moon!!!! HA! The dark streak behind it is its contrail. I’m astounded that the moon is as sharp as it is because I’d only aimed and started hitting the shutter when the plane zoomed by.
The world is a wondrous place. 🙂 Especially with mustangs … not pictured, but always there.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 
Wonderful photos, TJ! Virga, iconic landscapes and moonshots…oh my. I LOVE your moon photo with the jet and its contrail. Absolutely stunning – a photography contest-winning kind of a catch for sure! You amaze.
We actually got rain in the night! OK, not very much, and it didn’t even wet the ground under the canopy of my big silver poplar tree, but gosh, it was nice. Hoping for more! Ha – I couldn’t believe I actually caught the plane in the pic. It was so fast, and I didn’t even hear the roar of it until it was already past, and I was looking at the back of my camera, thinking, “what the heck WAS that?!” HA!
WOW! What a great picture of the plane passing the moon!
Not a bad photobomb, eh? Ha! 🙂
Peace with nature’s wonder😊
I wish more people would enjoy it and not exploit it.
Oh WOW! That photo needs to be seen world-wide! What a capture!
There are many really exemplary shots like that – all planned, I’m sure. The really crazy thing behind mine is that it was completely random! 🙂
The randomness is crazy! I would try to plan something like that and it would NEVER happen, lol!
I know, right?! Same here, and I would have been WAY too slow. The plane was gone before I even realized it was there!
Thank you, TJ,
Thanks so much, TJ, for the reminder of how miraculous the world is – rainbows, virga and most of all mustangs. Our visit to Spring Creek in May was a long wished for miracle for us – seeing wild horses running free, but under your watchful, caring eye. XOXO
With all luck, they’ll be running free in Spring Creek Basin for a very long time to come. 🙂 A world with mustangs is an even more magical place!
Every little bit of rain helps.
That moon and plane photo, WOW!! That is a serendipitous capture.
Too crazy. It still makes me laugh. 🙂 Speaking of rain, we just got a drenching! Fast and hard, and water running – hopefully into ponds and catchments, let alone down all the arroyos, Disappointment and Spring creeks! But the craziest thing about that is that – still! – maybe less than an inch under the surface, the soil is still bone dry. 😦 … It was STILL a GREAT rain! 🙂
Fabulous images TJ, all of them, and I especially love the virga – such a meditative moment 🤍
From a photographic standpoint, oh, I love virga! … From a worried-like-crazy-about-the-drought standpoint … it makes me crazy! 🙂 But we did just get a little drencher. The clouds unleashed their moisture, and the rain made contact!