First Time Watching a Sunset

As just about everyone else on earth I have seen some pretty sunsets.  Sky all kinds of colors and such.  I don't know if it's my imagination or not but it seems that since being in this house in GA I've seen more of these displays than previously.  The house faces west for the most part and the western sun usually does no more for me than cause me to lower the shades in the front windows.  Well, last evening I was feeling particularly happy or whatever you want to call it, I'm sure due to my having connected with my son, daughter-in-law, and two grandkids on a video call via my new computer.  When that call ended I stepped over to see if I could raise the shades and decided to step out onto the front porch.  As you know the house sits on a pretty good hill and I've got a pretty much unobstructed view of the sun going behind the trees in the distance.  From what I could see there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  For some reason I decided to sit and watch the sun set.  I've never done that before... just watch the sun go down.  I've never been real keen on just sitting and watching the world, or the sun, go by.  For some other reason unknown to me I decided to grab my camera and take some pictures of it.  Well, I was like a kid in a candy store!  I was in my own little world... just me and the setting sun.  I was quite surprised by many things that happened during the next 20 minutes or so and ended up taking 107 pictures!  I can't post 107 pictures but what follows is a recap of what I saw.  I recommend clicking on the photos to make them bigger.  You know, get the full effect :)

So, here's the sun just falling into the trees.  I think you'd agree with me that it appears to be a cloudless sky.  Silly observer.

This is no more than 3 minutes later.  The sky seemed to have caught fire and this cloud, or whatever it is, appears.  This is when I started taking pictures pretty much nonstop :)

The sky started getting darker but this cloud just glowed.

I was taking these while holding the camera in my hands but tried to keep the same angle or whatever you call it.  If I do this again I'll set up the tripod.  The way this cloud was expanding really got to me.  I wish I knew more about just what this thing is since it didn't appear before the sun went down.

The sky started darkening more, turning purple.  The narrow band of whatever seen below the cloud thing appeared as a bright red line.  Did I mention I was captivated by this?

Darker still but holding its own.  The 'new' clouds above the main one become more pronounced.

A new band of clouds, or whatever, expands.  The lower line is just the most dynamic red I think I've ever seen in the sky.

The red band disappeared... became dark... but I started to notice that the sky was becoming different shades of color, vertically, and you could actually see the sun's rays or whatever was doing it.

The red is picked up by the 'main' cloud.  The clouds above the main one disappeared... in just minutes.  Why?  I have absolutely no idea.  The bands of vertical light were becoming more pronounced to me though not easily discernible in this photo.

I pulled the focus of the camera back in the hopes of capturing these bands of light I was seeing when not looking through the camera... and it worked :)  The cloud was apparently now blocking the sun's rays from getting through.  Whatever caused it to happen escapes me but I really didn't care... I thought it was just so pretty.  If you do click on this photo to make it bigger you'll see the sliver of moon now catching those rays and making its appearance.

 



I stopped soon hereafter because I couldn't hold the camera steady enough to get it focused with the diminishing light.  I figured I had enough anyway and was just hoping that they had turned out all right.  For me, they did.  None of these photos has been enhanced, mainly because I don't know how to do that.  As mentioned this was the first time I remember ever watching a sunset.  I think I will be doing it again :)