In Yosemite National Park, California, in spring and early summer and around the time of the full moon, the mist from Yosemite Falls can form a moonbow, or lunar rainbow or a waterfall mistbow. A moonbow is a rainbow caused by moon light, rather than sunlight. When viewing this phenomenon, most people can't see the color of the spectrum because the moonlight is too dim to stimulate the color receptors in your eyes. We have encountered some people who claim that they can see some color in the moonbows, however. With a long exposure, 20 to 30 seconds, with a camera, the colors appear in the final image. The night of the full moon is the brightest, but up to 2 days before or after the night of the full moon could also work.
For the above images, Bob went on the night of the full moon on Memorial Day 2018 to Lower Yosemite Falls. Although the images look like they could've been taken during the day, he included stars in the sky to prove that they were nighttime shots. In the vertical image, the Big Dipper hangs over the Lower Yosemite Falls and the moonbow. When Bob first got to the falls, the moonbow was fairly high above the mist from the falls, but as the night went on, it got lower and lower until it was in front of the mist.
One of the great challenges of taking this sort of image is that you need the mist from the falls in order to get the moonbow, but then if the mist reaches high enough, it can make the rest of the image look fuzzy. There's also a very good chance that you'll get wet depending on how great the water flow over the waterfall is and on which way and how strongly the wind is blowing.
Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.
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