The Moon rises just south of the Brooklyn Bridge in this view of the lower Manhattan and the "Tribute in Light" light display on 9/11/2006. The view stretches from Ellis Island on the left to Governor's Island on the right, with the Moon over it.

The lightbulbs powering the "Tribute in Light" display consume almost 1/4 million watts of electricity. The column of light can be seen over 40 miles away. (See the image at the bottom of this page.) The twin columns of light in lower Manhattan are about twice as far away as the Statue of Liberty. The Empire State Building (lighted red, white, and blue and visible on the left over Ellis Island) is about twice as far away as lower Manhattan.

The following two images show how much Manhattan's skyline changed between 2006 and 2015.

Composite of a series of 12 exposures ranging from 8 seconds to 1/4 second at f4.5 and ISO 50 plus one 1 second exposure at f5.4 of the Moon all with a Canon S80. The last exposure (of the Moon rising) was taken at 9:21:16 p.m. EDT on September 11, 2006. Photographed from Jersey City, New Jersey. ©2006

A closer crop of the above image. Compare this image from 2006 to the one below from 2015.

This image was taken from within a few feet of the same spot as the above images but nine years later. It shows how much Manhattan's skyline changed in those nine years.

Three exposures bracketed around 1/4 sec at f/4.0 and ISO 800 with a Canon 5DIII at 67mm from Jersey City, New Jersey at 2015-09-11 8:37 PM EDT. ©2015

The Tribute lights were easily seen from thirty miles away in New Jersey. The light column was visible rising over twelve miles vertically into the night sky.

Composite of two images, each 16 seconds at f/4.0 and ISO 800 with a Canon 5DIII and a 15mm lens from northern New Jersey on 2015-09-11. ©2015