Moonrise at Kata Tjuta

This is a section of the dissected monadnock of Kata Tjuta (formerly The Olgas) in the desert of the Northern Territory in central Australia. The low-angle dip of the bedding in the Proterozoic alluvial fan arkoses and conglomerates is crossed by dark streaks of lichen and staining due to the occasional draining of rain water off the tops of the bare red hills. Wind erosion has produced small hollows in the sides of the hills too. These cavities tend to line up along certain softer beds in the sequence, and elsewhere actually form caves. This evening saw the phenomenon of a 'perfect moon', in which the full Moon (shown here) rose exactly as the Sun set. This HDR image is a little noisy, partly because of the high ISO speed necessary to hand-hold the camera for three exposures in the dim light, and partly due to the HDR processing itself.