We went to our local mall Monday night. It was around 7:45 when we left, just in time to see the last red of sunset and the setting new moon.

I had to use my iPhone since I almost never have my camera with me. Unfortunately, for this purpose at least, the lens was far too wide to get what I wanted. I had to crop the image significantly to get this.

The brightest part of the sky also washed out the red.

Leah and I remarked on how red the sky was while we were driving back home. It made it very pretty, but the beauty belied the cause, which is dirty air. In this case, I suspect that much of what I call dirty air is really dirt, or dust, suspended in the air. It’s not particularly noticeable during the day, but when the sun’s rays have to travel through a lot of it, it tints the sky red.

We in the Southeast are under a high pressure area that tends to keep whatever happens to end up in the air suspended there. Atlanta has had air quality warnings lately, and I noticed my weather app showed one for us a couple of days ago.

We hope that a cold front that is supposed to come through next weekend will clear some of the pollution from the air, as well as bring in some slightly lower temperatures.