Earth Day Earthshine

"Wow, look at that crescent moon on the horizon." (Sound of gears grinding in my head.) "Think I can get my camera set up before it sets?" "I don't know," she says skeptically, "one moon's width is three minutes - better hurry." Into the house and down the stairs two at a time in my slippers. Grab the camera from one room, tripod and telephoto from another room, back up the stairs and out the door.

Earthshine on the dark side of tonight's crescent moon. (ISO 800, 2 sec, F4.0, D7000)

Stick the 500mm on my wobbly tripod head, decide to go for it and add the 1.4x converter. Stop down one stop to sharpen the converter (hurry up, moon's behind the trees now), guestimate the ISO and shutter speed, and set the self-timer for two seconds. Hold my breath, squeeze two frames of the moon, then two left and two right. (I'm hoping that a stitch will hide some of the wobbles when I downsize.)  Moon's below the horizon when I finish shooting. Phew. Nice ending to a blue sky Earth Day.