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Moon Marvels Above Oregon Coast Are More Than Just a Glow

Published 05/11/21 at 7:25 PM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

Moon Marvels Above Oregon Coast Are More Than Just a Glow

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(Oregon Coast) – Not all the cool stuff on the Oregon coast happens during the daytime. There’s a whole new, alternative universe-like world found after dark along the beaches. Case in point: the moon. Our nearest interplanetary neighbor staring back at us has a way of creating an entirely new landscape on the sands or even the waves, making a stunning, different reality of wild shapes and enchanting, muted colors you've never seen before.

To top it off, there’s more to the moon than just a glowing orb. Weather phenomena can do some amazing things.

If you're looking for yet another way to be amazed by the Oregon coast, simply look up at night.



Take moon halos, for example. Here, in Depoe Bay one cold winter's night, that ever-engaging phenomenon comprised of ice crystals in the atmospheric hovers over the central Oregon coast town.


Nearby, at Cape Foulweather on a summer's night, a monstrous moon shines down on the ocean and lights up sky just beyond a variety of fog layers to turn it blue – like some sort of fake daylight.

But, as we all know, the moon is visible during the day as well. Here, on the northern face of Pacific City's Cape Kiwanda, it reveals itself under the sun. With those massive sand dunes just below it, the place looks like something out of the first scenes in Star Wars.

Above Manzanita, some 500 feet above the planet's ocean, the overlooks at Neahkahnie have become remarkably surreal, between the car lights driving by, the fog, and a car's taillight casting a red glow on that pyramid-like rock.


At Seaside, in this shot taken one sizably warm summer’s night, it lights up the beach along with the sodium lamps of the Promenade (which causes that orange tint to everything). A couple takes advantage of the swing set on the beach, creating that eerie blur there as bonfires dot the landscape. You can almost feel the nocturnal energy coursing through everyone’s veins on this eve.

In Newport, a stunning full moon lights up the Yaquina Bay Bridge on this summer's night – actually a day before the Fourth of July.


Then, near Oceanside, this scene at Cape Lookout reminds us that even the moon behind clouds can be a mesmerizing thing, as the last rays of sun paint the beach a piquant purple and the Earth's satellite begins to peek out.

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