We’ve not been out much on nature hikes this year. We did, however, pay a brief visit to a local park Saturday, and spotted a few dragonflies. This is one of many Autumn Meadowhawks we observed that afternoon at the Medina County Park District’s Alderfer-Chatfield Wildlife Sanctuary. These red beauties are usually the last dragonfly seen each year with a flight season that begins in July and which can extend to mid-November.
Okay, I know this is ugly — a not-very-good image of planet Jupiter. I know, and yet I’m posting this because this humble effort is the best I’ve done thus far in my beginning planetary imaging efforts. I made a stack of images around 11:11 p.m., Friday, Sept. 10. Conditions were difficult with breezes, and high altitude haze and I found achieving good focus was hard. Maybe an electric micro focus would help? A longer native focal length telescope would also help by producing a bigger image on the camera’s sensor!
On the “up” side, even this crude attempt shows several of the planet’s cloud belts, even hints at major atmospheric disruptions; that makes me happy, or at least happier. Lost in processing were nearby Galilean Moons Io and Europa which would have appeared just to the right of Jupiter’s disk. My previous planetary effort was Mars one year ago! Between the sky conditions (rarely good, it seems), and my nighttime motivation, I sadly don’t get much practice.
To produce the image I used my Vixen 8-inch Cassegrain 1,800mm FL telescope (love the scope but need more focal length), ZWI ASI178MC planetary camera, Lynkeos Stacker processing software which is a native MacOS application. I shut down a bit after midnight Friday night and hoped for clear skies Saturday night — I wanted to try again and try a a piggybacked shot using my DSLR and telephoto lens, getting Jupiter and his family of moons. Alas, no. Clouds and smoke from western U.S. fires plus continued breezes played havoc with the sky. So I tore down the rig and stowed everything hoping good conditions come soon.
I was able to record the approach of a massive mesoscale convective system (MCS) with its shelf cloud early in the afternoon of August 25 — this panorama I assembled shows most of it. I posted a panning video I shot of the storm and it was discovered by a producer at Accuweather. The cable weather channel requested permission to use the “footage” on-air but I denied the request … I feared their use of my drone video, myself not yet a certified professional drone pilot, would violate FAA regulations. I was later told by a flight instructor that I could have granted permission, even sold the video to a willing buyer, since it was created for recreation and not on assignment or with the intent of commercial use. I still sigh thinking about that one. Mebbie next time!
By the way, I have a lot of experience with this type of weather phenomenon and was even checking radar as the storm approached so I knew when to land to avoid rain and strong winds.
One reason I purchased a drone aircraft was to be able to view sunrises, sunsets, and weather phenomena from home by rising above the trees that surround us. The experiments have been successful, this being the latest effort.
After a long period of quiet during our Sun’s fairly predictable 11-year activity cycle, things have been happening. What was a bright, clear disk has become speckled with sunspots of late. The increased activity brings with it the chance of Earth-directed coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which result in solar storms when they collide with our home planet’s magnetic field. Auroras, or “northern lights” for us, are one potential result of solar storms. The less pleasant effects can include disruption of radio communications and satellite operation, all the way to electrical grid failures at the extreme!
Several recent CMEs have missed Earth but one is headed in our direction as this blog entry is being written. According to SpaceWeather.com, “{A} CME is on the way following an explosion in the magnetic canopy of sunspot AR2864 on Sept. 8th. NOAA analysts believe Earth could experience a glancing blow or near miss late on Sept. 11th.” Those favored with clear skies and a good view to the north may want to be on the lookout for aurora, but the odds aren’t favorable … this time!
Here are two photos of Sun I shot at 3:43 PM EDT (7:43 PM UTC). The first image shows the full solar disk. Notice not only the dark sunspots but also the lighter-colored “splotches” of additional active solar regions, most visible near the edges of the disk.
The second image is cropped to show the major concentration of the day’s sunspots with their official numerical designations. Both images have been color tinted.
The Sun is waking up and putting on a wonderful show!
One of many Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies we spotted this afternoon at the Medina County Park District’s Alderfer-Chatfield Wildlife Sanctuary. These red beauties are usually the last dragonfly seen each year with a flight season that begins in July and which can extend to mid-November if there aren’t heavy frosts, according to the Wisconsin Wetlands Association.
A line of thunderstorms was bearing down on our area the night of July 24 and it looked like it might be interesting — it has been a while since I’ve made any lightning pictures. The storm progressed slowly from Southeastern Michigan and Northwest Ohio and across Lake Erie finally beginning its arrival here around midnight. As the storm overran the area, I watched it for lightning potential. Ducking outside and looking up at one point, I was treated to a beautiful “anvil crawler” display nearly overhead!
I rushed to my office and quickly assembled my gear: Canon EOS 6D Mk. 2, wide-angle lens, and tripod. First to the northern side of the house. After some waiting and a couple of “teasers” the storm let loose a magnificent crawler — brilliant lightning crossing the cloud bottoms, branching off to the sides. Turns out, that was the shot of the night though I didn’t know it at the time since I was unable to preview my images. Light rain began to fall and with not enough shelter, I moved to the south side of the house.
It took a while for the storm to progress southward enough for me to see the dwindling cloud-to-cloud lightning flashes but they eventually came. I spent maybe 90 minutes watching the storm, aiming the camera, waiting for the automatic trigger to capture the ephemeral brilliance. Thunder, this night, rolled across the dark countryside for many seconds after each flash before fading away — something I’ve not experienced in quite some time. It was lovely. My sheltered spot on the south side kept camera, lens, and photographer dry throughout, which isn’t always the case. Rain prevented me from aiming the camera as high as I’d have liked. Just a few drops on the camera lens, combined with a bright lightning flash, produces an unusable image.
The storm petered out so, sometime around 1:45 a.m. I went back indoors, and reviewed the images via the camera’s display. Yes! Beautiful stuff! Editing the photos after sleeping for a few hours was the highlight of my Sunday morning.
In future I really need to find a sheltered place, or at least a place where I can park and shoot from my car at night, a spot that has an open view of the countryside and/or town. In the mean time, results from the Saturday night storm were worth the sleep deprivation.
It has been a fairly quiet (visually) storm season for me this year but there has been some drama. Here are several shots, from two storms, that took place in July.
Views of the July 7th’s approaching storm: the most active portion was behind me producing low rumbles of distant thunder. Except for light, cooling gusts of wind and these beautiful clouds, nothing remarkable happened where I stood. Not even a drop of rain.
