Venus And Mars Are All Right Tonight

The planets Venus and Mars were less than a degree apart from one another on the evening of Sunday, February 22, 2015. Venus (left in images) gleamed at -3.95 magnitude and Mars at 1.26 magnitude. The top image was captured at 6:31 PM CST, the middle at 6:34 PM and the bottom again at 6:31 PM. The bottom two images include a waxing quarter moon. All images look west from the parking lot at Christ Community United Methodist Church in Marion, Iowa. Prime viewing was actually two evenings earlier, when the planets AND the moon were clustered in very tight formation, but cloud cover prevented it. Air temperature at the time of image capture above was a frigid 3 degrees F, and my exposed fingers became painfully numb in less than a couple of minutes! Camera: Nikon D5000 DSLR.

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Florida Memories

A family vacation to the great state of Florida in 2007 produced the two images seen above. The bottom image shows a billowing cumulonimbus cloud ahead of our vehicle as we traveled south (SE) toward our destination of Orlando. Our location in the image was on Interstate 75 in north Florida, less than a mile from Exit 460 around 3:25 PM EDT, June 10, 2007. A beautiful sunset is shown in the top image near the pier at Clearwater Beach, 8:05 PM, June 14, 2007. Camera: Canon Power Shot A95.

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End Of An Early February Day

Altocumulus clouds partially hid an already bleak sun on this early February afternoon as seen from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Both images look west around 3:35 PM, Tuesday, February 5, 2015. Air temperature was a brisk 20 degrees F.

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Boyson Park Snow Scenes

The three images above are more photos during the snow event of Sunday, February 1, 2015 as seen from Boyson Park in Marion, Iowa just east of Cedar Rapids. 9 inches of snow was on the ground at this time, and an addition 2 more would fall before it was all over. Times of capture were: top (10:56 AM), middle (11:08 AM) and bottom (11:14 AM). Temperature was 20 degrees F.

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Dreamy Snowfall

A steady and heavy snowfall with brisk 25 mph winds created a dreamy and flocked effect on trees
in Boyson Park in Marion, Iowa late Sunday Morning, February 1, 2015. The heavy snow was part of a large system that would extend to the eastern United States. The creek in the middle image is Dry Run Creek. Up to 11 inches of snow fell here when all was said and done. Temperature at this time was 20 degrees F.

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Tritone Barn

The above image is a tritone version of the January 11 blog posting that can be found below. It was created by converting the original color image to black and white, then adding two Pantone colors to the black. By using channels in Photoshop before the conversion, effects such as the swirling wintery sky is brought out in greater detail. Original photo captured on January 9, 2015 when air temperatures were a mere five degrees F.

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Big Country

This sundog was captured with room to spare in a panoramic image as seen from Radio Road, one mile east of Highway 13 northeast of Marion, Iowa at 4:13 PM CST, Friday, January 9, 2015. Air temperature was 5 degrees F, with wind chills at -15 degrees. The image was created from three slightly overlapping shots and blended together in Adobe Bridge.

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