A Classic Washington, D.C. Sunrise

* More Clouds than Sun: Full Forecast | NatCast *

The rising sun lines up with the Reflecting Pool and Washington Monument Saturday morning.

It's actually kind of rare to have a perfectly clear sunrise this time of year, without a single cloud in the sky, but Saturday was a great example. I arrived at the Reflecting Pool at dawn Saturday morning and immediately set out my video camera to capture a time lapse of the sunrise. I wanted to compress an hour of video, from dawn through sunrise, into 30 seconds. I also had my SLR camera and I took photos of the sunrise from various angles, always keeping an eye on my video camera to make sure no-one walked off with it. The photos turned out OK, but I really enjoyed watching the sunrise video.

Keep reading for the time lapse video...

A time lapse video of Saturday morning's sunrise, one hour compressed into 30 seconds.

Try watching the video the first time for the sunrise and sky colors, then watch it a second time for the ducks. The ducks were quite busy Saturday morning at the Reflecting Pool and they tried to steal the show. In case anyone is interested, I used Adobe Premiere Elements to do the time lapse crunch and then I threw in a little Led Zepplin for sound effects.