eTna :))

Yes, that thing in the left background IS the full moon - Etna, 11 February 1998
Originally uploaded by etnaboris

Yes, that thing in the left background IS the full moon - Etna, 11 February 1998

If you're a volcanologist you know you have one of those rare days in your lifetime that you would consider perfect when you stand on the summit of your favorite volcano in full eruption, first watch the sunset and the shadow of the volcano falling over the nearby sea, and then you watch the full moon rising over the erupting volcano. That's what happened to me on that evening of 11 February 1998, although I must admit that Etna has permitted me to live an incredible amount of such "perfect" days (now Etna is, for the moment, a bit less spectacularly active, but my family more than makes up for it).

I took this photo from the slope of the central summit cone of Etna, looking down onto the Southeast Crater, which back then was considerably lower than it is today. Within the Southeast Crater is a small cone displaying what is called Strombolian activity (small, discrete explosions throwing out bunches of incandescent lava fragments) and on its right (southern) side is a vent emitting a little lava flow. The lights in the background are of towns that lie on the eastern (Ionian) coast of Sicily, and in the left distance, below the rising full moon, is Calabria, the southern tip of the Italian mainland.

Scanned from original Ektachrome slide - please don't mind the scratches and remainders of fungi on the slide