BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - It can be awe-inspiring to glance up just before dark and see the full moon rising in the eastern sky and spotting a supermoon when our neighbor is closest to the earth is amazing. Gotta bring multiple cameras tonight. One for the video and then one for the full moon.

I wanted to capture that giant moon and have it appear close to a familiar landmark. It looks so easy on TV. Mr. Mike, how are you?

“Good, how are you?”

Pretty good man. Captain Mike Jones of Louisiana Tours and Adventures on the Tchefuncte River in Madisonville was going to get me to the right spot for the September supermoon. Have you ever had folks call you up and say, let’s go do a moonlight cruise?

“Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ve been been offering that people come out at night and it’s best time to see alligators ‘cause their eyes reflect at night,” said Jones.

But conditions were not ideal. There were low clouds and that can ruin a moonrise. You never know if the weather’s gonna cooperate, if you’re gonna get the color in the moon or in the sunset, but if you don’t come out, you’ll never get anything. I wanted to be on the western side of the Tchefuncte River lighthouse. A spot you can only get to by boat.

So that blue line is where the moon is going to rise. Okay, lighthouse is right here. I used apps on my phone to plot the moon’s path and timing. Around 7:30 p.m., the moon should start breaking the horizon. While we waited. Captain Mike spotted an alligator watching us. My photographer friend Brian Lukas, offered to video record me as I planned the moon shoot. I kind of like this distance right here. We’ve got some of those low clouds on the horizon, so we may not actually see when the moon breaks the horizon.

“We could go over there with a leaf blower and blow those clouds,” Jones joked.

But the clouds persisted until the moon had risen well above the horizon and the lighthouse. It’s there. It’s just, uh, hiding behind the clouds. When the moon finally showed itself, we moved closer to the lighthouse to improve the angle. But not the shot I was hoping for. Well, had to wait a whole month to do it again. We should have a big old moon tonight. Hopefully it will be in the right place and we’ll get it this time.

“I’ll get it for you,” Jones said.

Alright man. This time the skies were clear and hopefully the sun’s not too bright. The moon should be up before the sun sets. So we’ll see. As the sunlight began to fade, we spotted the full moon through a hazy sky. And that is just one beautiful moon. Look at that. With a long telephoto lens, a stiff breeze rocking the boat and the occasional flashing of the lighthouse beacon, I fired off a steady stream of shots.

Maybe a little closer to the lighthouse, so it’ll make another pass. As the moon rose higher and drifted through the darkening sky, we followed it, keeping it close to the lighthouse. Brian and I clicked away excited by what we were capturing. As the sun was setting and the moon got brighter and it was massive. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a moon any bigger than it was tonight. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It’s a great trip. And I’m planning more evening trips, looking for new moonrise locations, trying to capture the monthly marvel of the evening sky.

Pictures of the supermoon and the date of the next one can be found on Heart of Louisiana’s website .

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