The Moon Outside My Window

This morning around 8:45 I happened to look out my window and saw the moon, which is just past full. When I look over the apartment buildings, the view is dominated by a few Douglas firs, one of which has a split top. The moon was getting near them and I decided to take a few pictures. I would've liked to have gone out on my small deck, but then the building next to mine would have gotten in the way. You can see a little bit of its roof in the lower left of the first picture. I had to settle for shooting through the window, making sure the camera's autofocus didn't focus on the window frame instead of the moon and trees.

I didn't have time to get out the tripod since the moon was getting close to the trees, so I had to try to be as steady as I could while shooting. Fortunately I have a lot of practice doing that. The camera has a 12x optical zoom and I rarely go beyond it to use the digital zoom. This was one of those times. The really zoomed shot isn't all that fantastic. A tripod really would have helped, but I tried anyway.

Because of the extreme zoom, not all of the moon got in the frame. I tried again and did get it all in the frame, but the first extreme zoom shot was clearer. Then I noticed a jet getting close to the moon, so I shut off the digital zoom and took another shot at 12x. Getting the zoom right meant the jet was past the moon, but considering I only had seconds to work with, it's close enough and I like how the contrail just intersects the top of the moon.

Here's another image of the same shot with the jet, cropped to make the moon, contrail and jet a bit larger.

The view outside the window, which is in the dining area off the living room (I've never had a dining table - it's my computer area instead) isn't all that great, but at least I can look outside and see trees and sky. Once in a while something interesting happens out there.