Barnegat Lighthouse Moonrise
February 25, 2010
Photographer: Jim Phillips
Summary Author: Jim Phillips; Jim Foster
The photo above shows a faint but full Moon rising aside the Barnegat Lighthouse, off Long Beach Island, New Jersey. It’s just a few degrees above the horizon here, fighting its way through the haze over the Atlantic Ocean. The Moon's light salmon color is due to the longer distance sunlight must traverse through the Earth's atmosphere when the Sun lies close to the horizon. Since the full Moon is on the rise, the Sun is setting on the opposite horizon. At sunset and sunrise, the shorter wavelength colors (violets and blues) are absent. They’re more readily scattered out of our view than are the longer wavelengths (oranges and reds) by the more numerous air molecules. Photo taken on December 1, 2009.