Every August I like to go somewhere with dark skies to view the Perseid Meteor shower. For the last couple of years I’ve either ventured to the North Shore of Minnesota or Voyageurs National Park. This year I wanted to try something different so I began looking for a place in Western Minnesota. Blue Mounds State Park came up as a potential spot as the skies should be dark enough and I’ve been wanting to return and explore this park again. I visited this interesting park in 2014 and enjoyed my time there. Having a little familiarity with it would help in picking out a spot to photograph meteors flying through the sky so that would be my destination for this years Perseid’s.

Returning from Isle Royale National Park in July left me pretty unmotivated because that was such a great experience for me but my vacation time was now used up for the year leaving me with little desire to grab the camera and go out photographing. All that was left were my homeowner projects which I really needed to get taken care of. I just didn’t have any desire to. Now a trip to see a meteor shower at in a beautiful place was on the calendar and my energy began to return even though it was only for a weekend. And not a long weekend at that. While planning this little trip and preparing my camping gear once again, a thought arose. What would the moon phase be during this meteor seeking weekend? Looking at a astrological calendar showed that a nearly full moon was expected with moon rise shortly after sun set. That won’t work! Should I still go? Somewhat deflated I settled on keeping my plans and decided to go anyway. Maybe there would be a nice storm which is something else I wanted to photograph over the vast prairie in this area.

While driving to Blue Mounds State Park I explored some different options for taking advantage of the bright moon light. Where could I set up and get some unique photographs? The moon can provide some interesting effects to the landscape which I’ve been experimenting a little with. As the sun was setting I hiked out to a spot near cliffs of pink stone which hopefully will illuminate well from a bright moon. Getting into place and setting up my camera as the sky was becoming dark, I was hopeful for a few beautiful pictures. Soon after the moon rose above the horizon and my night of photographing began. I tried a couple of compositions from panoramas of the horizon as the moon broke above to placing some of the pink rocks in the foreground. As the moon rose higher in the sky I turned the camera towards the now brightened cliffs to see how the moon would shine off of those jagged rocks. The big dipper did cooperate and was shining just above the horizon above some of these interesting cliffs. Unfortunately I didn’t really capture pictures that I was hoping for but it was a fun night to be out there with the occasional pack of coyotes howling off in the distance. That is until the wind pick up!