I like “skies”.
Or maybe “sun”.
But I didn’t win, so I’ll shut up now. 
mmm
Thanks to everyone who voted for my picture. I had hoped for a vote or two, never expected to be in contention for first. Especially with all the great photos that were entered. Can’t wait to see the photos for next month.
Hi everyone. Today is the deadline for choosing the next theme for the January competition.
As a reminder, the last competition ended in a five-way tie between @Galactus, @Banquet_Bear, @minor7flat5, @solost and myself. I recused myself from the pick with the caveat that if the others didn’t reach a decision then I’d pick (as organiser, not as a joint winner of the last one).
I haven’t heard anything from the other winners other than the discussion in this thread, so here’s the plan: if I don’t get a decision by the deadline of 9pm GMT tonight (for reference, the GMT time stamp of this post will be just before 10am) then we’ll go with “skies” which was talked about above, and incorporates all the other suggestions which started with sunsets and expanded from there.
Thanks everyone.
OK… so that’s a done deal then. 
The next competition will be on the theme of “Skies”. I’ll set the competition thread up as per the last one tomorrow, but feel free to start thinking about it now. Clouds, sunrises, sunsets, the moon, the sun, stars, the Northern Lights… all are fair game, as is any other interpretation of the theme!
Hi everyone, the new thread for this month’s competition is now live! Apologies - it’s a little later than planned, due to a combination of work commitments and me being a bit poorly (don’t worry, I’ll live).
As per the above posts, the theme is “skies”. As always, interpret that as broadly as you like.
The relevant deadlines are posted in the competition thread. Good luck!
I don’t think I have any appropriate pic already taken and it is not outside weather for me with nothing but grey skies and wet for a while. Can’t wait to see what Dopers come up with this time.
With a bit of creative thought, grey skies could make for an interesting photo. 
That’s what I like to see. Kick the thread off, go to bed, and the next morning there are already a bunch of great photos in it.
@gnarator I believe I know when this pic was taken, I have been following mars this week. Nice avatar / submitted picture combination!
Great theme. I’m not a photographer, but every day I find myself appreciating the sky at some point. So many times, I look at the sky and think, “If I were a painter, and created a painting showing the sky exactly as it looks right now, people would think I’d used a little too much imagination.” Skies are literally incredible.
December 7th-8th. Rare full Moon/ Mars Opposition.
Cell phone on eyepiece.
Oh! This is one month earlier than I thought. I saw a very similar conjunction two/three days ago.
Where are you located? The one a month ago was primarily in the northern hemisphere, and it featured a full moon and Mars at opposition: Lunar occultation of Mars - In-The-Sky.org
The one a few days ago was primarily in the southern hemisphere, and featured a not-quite full moon and Mars just past opposition: What will happens tonight as Mars hides behind moon - Daily News
I was lucky, in that it was clear (though cold), and the wind had died, so the atmosphere was steady–it wasn’t in upheaval the whole time. Usually this time of year it’s cloudy, or clear but really cold, with a roiling atmosphere.
Berlin, Germany, 52° North. Indeed, now I see that your moon is fuller than it was three days ago when the moon and mars crossed paths. But both the moon and mars have been fully visible here the whole week, apart from the cloudy spells.
…for anyone interested, a quick behind-the-scenes of my “Skies” photo.
So we had been shooting up at Mt Victoria for a couple of hours, but hadn’t really captured anything that “clicked” for me. But as the sun got lower it suddenly burst through the clouds that turned everything around. We only had it for a few minutes so we literally had to run to get set-up and shoot: we only had this light for less than five minutes and when it went away all the drama was gone.
The behind-the-scenes photo shows my go-to lighting setup: Mike and Poppy with a Visco battery-powered strobe with beauty dish camera right as key, Stanley with a bare camera flash camera left hitting Christa from the side/back to add a bit of edge. The wind was so strong it took two people to stop the beauty dish from flying away.
There are a ton of amazing photos! how am I supposed to just pick 3??
Holy shit, you guys. How am I suppose to decide?
@snowthx: that is an amazing picture, you took advantage of perfect conditions, I know one of my votes already. The other two will be hard indeed.
Thank you! The story behind the photo - I was on a bike trip down the California coast this last late-September and spent a couple hours in the late afternoon lounging (napping) on the beach. I watched the sun set into the ocean (no green flash - I never see it) and was walking back to my bicycle camp for dinner. I turned around for a last look at the flat light, glass-like water of the creek reflecting the clear sky, and the crescent moon, and just snapped that one. I have others from that same trip that are also great, but that one is different (no sun, no clouds, mainly black and blue with few other colors), so I thought it would make an interesting entry here.
I’ve just remembered that I haven’t submitted a picture yet… must get on with that!