Flaming Sky Followed By Falling Rain

The sky took on a surreal yellowish hue on the morning of Friday, August 22, 2014 as seen from Miller Road, just north of Boyson Road in Hiawatha, Iowa. This was a prelude to approaching thundershowers, which arrived within an hour of capture. Photo looks southeast at 6:18 AM CDT.

Read more...

Ocean Waves In The Sky

Five minutes on the road without my Nikon D5000 DSLR camera Tuesday morning, August 26, 2014 and I knew I was going to miss out on something big. Vicious lightning and a photogenic shelf cloud was approaching from the west. So my cell phone camera at once had to suffice. Low light conditions rendered noise on these digital images, but the spectacular flowing cloud formations provided some consolation. All three images were shot near North 15th Avenue and Progress Drive in Hiawatha, Iowa. The top two images, looking north, were captured at 6:16 and 6:21 AM. The bottom image was captured at 6:22 AM and looks south.

Read more...

Morning Storms Reflecting Sun's Rays

A severe-warned storm system in southern Iowa caught the rays of the rising sun as seen in the top two images captured on Wednesday morning, August 20, 2014. Both images were taken just after sunrise and look southwest from Progress Drive and Martha's Way in Hiawatha, Iowa. The storm was located about 115 miles distant--along the border of Wayne and Appanoose counties. The top image--a panoramic shot--was captured around 6:25 AM CDT and the middle image at 6:37 AM. The bottom image is a radar screen capture of the storm.

Read more...

August Pre-Dawn Conjunction

The planets Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction as shown here 35 minutes before sunrise on Tuesday, August 19, 2014. The -3.91 magnitude Venus and the -1.80 magnitude Jupiter were within two degrees of one another in the ENE sky. This image, captured at 5:43 AM CDT, was taken from Archer Drive in the Bowman Meadows housing development in Marion, Iowa. It is a 3-second exposure at f/13, 200 ISO and 50mm focal length.

Read more...

Blurred Vision

Ground fog on Sunday and Monday mornings, August 17 and 18, 2014, made clear viewing a little on the difficult side. The fog shrouded the landscape producing these images. The top image looks east toward the rising sun from Blairs Ferry Road just west of Interstate 380 in Hiawatha, Iowa at 6:58 AM on Sunday, August 17. The bottom image looks southeast from Archer Drive in the Bowman Meadows housing development in Marion, Iowa around 5:42 AM on Monday, August 18.

Read more...

Mooned During Perseids Meteor Shower

Conditions for the viewing of the annual Perseids meteor shower peak during the early morning hours of Wednesday, August 13, 2014 would have been ideal: clear skies, 55 degrees F, little or no wind and no insect or "critter" interference. The only problem was that the moon also occupied the sky and it was three-quarters full. This light glare hid all but the brightest of meteor streaks. But there were some. All three of the images seen above contain the brightest fireball (whose angle seems to defy the radiant direction of the constellation Perseus toward the upper right). This photo location was at the NW corner of Radio Road and Highway 13 northeast of Marion, Iowa and looks north. The top image is a stacked composite of 102 exposures, taken from 1:23-2:20 AM CDT; each a 30 second exposure at f/3.5, 320 ISO and 18mm focal length. The length of time created the star trails effect. I set my camera to shoot each exposure continuously, which allowed me to sit back and watch the "show." The farm structures in the top image have been "light painted" from my flashlight. The middle image is one of the 102 exposures and includes the brightest meteor streak. The bottom image is a cropped version of the middle image.

Read more...

Star Trails And ISS

This image is a stacked set of 57 exposures taken from 10:25-11:00 PM CDT on Friday, August 8, 2014. Each exposure was shot at 30 seconds, f/3.5, 200 ISO and 18mm focal length. The image looks north from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The horizontal streak at lower right is the International Space Station, which was moving left to right. The tree at left center was light painted.

Read more...

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Brilliant sunrises, aided by forest fires in Canada, have been gracing U.S. skies recently. These offerings show the spectacle from Hiawatha, Iowa on Friday, August 1, 2014. The top two images are seen from Miller Road, just north of Boyson Road and were captured at 6:21 and 6:23 AM CDT respectively. The bottom image, shot at 6:26 AM, looks east from North 18th Avenue, just north of Progress Drive.

Read more...