Walt's Look Around: Super Full Moon - MSNewsNow.com - Jackson, MS

Walt's Look Around: Super Full Moon

April 28, 2012 we had the largest full moon of the year.  Some may or may not be able to see the difference. 

This is about the best shot I could get of the big moon last Saturday. Miz Jo held a mason jar and I got about 20 feet away with the camera and managed to position the jar to look like we were snagging the moon. But here's an older story I did about a half a dozen years ago about the moon and Mississippi.

I've had many nighttime drives back home after long days of shooting stories somewhere transformed from a lonely vigil into a pleasant experience just by the moon rising.

Some scientists are realizing that the moon's relation to the earth holding our planet tilted in its unique 23 and a half-degree list from the plane of its orbit, which gives us things like our seasons is what has allowed our particular brand of life to exist. Without the earth being just so, we wouldn't be here. And the moon helps keep it that way. So no wonder the moon seems friendly to us.

And a little scary, too. Let it rise behind a leafless autumn limb and you think of Halloween and witches. But let it rise behind a summer branch on a hilltop and it seems so close you could touch it. Course this is sort of an optical illusion The moon rising here over the bluffs behind Grand Gulf is being shot with the lens zoomed all the way in tight. Widen it out to normal and it shows how we really see things with out eyes. The moon there and us here. But you can see the moon better zoomed in. Here over the homes atop the bluffs at Natchez as seen from across the Mississippi River at Vidalia, the moon rises like a hot air balloon.

And speaking of optical illusions and the moon, have you ever noticed the moon following you? Here's a great example of that. The moon rolling like a marble on the eastern horizon beyond the December skyline of downtown Jackson as shot from Skycopter Three.

What would we do without the moon? The fun lasts twice as long on a moonlit night at the Neshoba County fair. The silvery moon shines on outside as the all-night singers sing about it doing so inside.

But it's when you are where you are all by yourself that the moon's your best friend. Being there, as always. Lighting up the sky. Lighting up what's nearby. Painting the Mississippi night in such ways that only the moon can.

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