Predawn Celestial Carolers

Like festive carolers lined up during Advent--the moon, planets and a star put on a show during the predawn hours of Saturday, December 16, 2017 in Marion, Iowa. The image shown above looks ESE from Alburnett Road at Bowstring Drive in the Bowman Meadows housing area at 6:23 am CST. Celestial objects are, from bottom left to upper right: waning crescent moon, -1.74 magnitude planet Jupiter, 1.59 magnitude planet Mars, and 0.96 magnitude star Spica (in constellation Virgo). Trailing this lineup below the horizon but not captured here was the planet Mercury, which became visible around 6:45 am; and Venus around 7:05 am. Official sunrise was at 7:29 am. Image is a 4-second exposure at f/6.3, 800 ISO and 18mm focal length. Air temperature was 30 degrees F. Nikon D7200 DSLR.

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Spring Break

Okay, not really spring break, but it was a break from winter conditions and very much like spring, so...

Unseasonably warm and humid conditions on Monday afternoon, December 4, 2017 in eastern Iowa brought thunderstorms--yes thunderstorms--not snow. A line of northeast-tracking storms brought wind, heavy rain and lighting--including one violent strike near this position on Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids. The above image looks north at 4:39 pm CST as the storm begins to move into the area. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

My Davis Instruments Vantage Vue weather station display at 4:36 pm. Southerly winds, 64-degree F temperature, 58-degree dew point, 79% humidity and a 29.41 in. and falling barometer were the order of the afternoon.

Shown above is a WeatherTap radar screen capture of eastern Iowa at 4:44 pm, showing lightning activity and storm track. The white arrow at Cedar Rapids indicates my position.

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Festive Supermoon

A "supermoon" hangs over a festive array of Christmas lights on White Ivy Place NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 6:06 am CST on Sunday, December 3, 2017 as it was setting in the west.
This image is a 0.8-second exposure at f/5.6, 640 ISO and 70mm focal length. Air temperature
was a frosty 27 degrees F. The moon here was composited from the image seen below.

This 300mm zoomed shot of the supermoon was also captured at 6:06 am and is a 1/250-second exposure at f/7.1, 200 ISO. Official full moon for this area occurred at 9:48 am, almost three hours after moonset. The moon was 8% wider and 16% brighter than average. A supermoon is defined as a full moon that coincides with the closest distance that it comes in relation to the Earth, resulting in a larger-than-normal size. This was the closest full moon for all of 2017. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Chilled Fire

With air temperatures hovering around the freezing mark on Sunday, November 19, 2017, post-sunset skies as seen from Marion, Iowa were nevertheless fiery. The image above looks west from Hampshire Drive, about one-tenth mile south of East Robins Road at 4:56 pm. Image is a 1/25-second exposure at f/5.6, 320 ISO and 122mm focal length.

Also looking west at 5:03 pm. 1/40-second exposure at f/8, 640 ISO and 190mm focal length.

5:23 pm. Looking southwest. Sky in this image includes a waxing crescent moon. 1/6-second exposure at f/5.6, 320 ISO, 95mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Too Late For Halloween

Looking perfect for a Halloween setting--but three days too late--is this full moon veiled by a thin layer of clouds and behind the branches of a bare tree. Image looks east from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was shot at 1/60 second at f/5.6, 800 ISO and 300mm focal length. 8:17 pm CDT, Friday, November 3, 2017. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Badlands Dark Skies Leftovers

Capturing early morning skies from the Badlands Door Trail in South Dakota on Monday, September 18, 2017 also included these two miscellaneous images. There were so many stars in this dark location that it was somewhat difficult to identify the constellation Orion. Conversely, in the light polluted skies of eastern Iowa, Orion is very obvious. The image above looks southeast at 4:15 am MDT. Just to the right of the Milky Way at center is Orion, with the -1.47 magnitude star Sirius seen just above and left of the horizon glow. Image is a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length.

Looking east at 5:26 am from the same location. Just above the horizon glow at center is the -3.94 magnitude planet Venus, rising ahead of an eventual conjunction that included the star Regulus, crescent moon, and planets Mars & Mercury respectively. Also visible above and right of Venus is the Beehive Cluster (M44). Identical settings to the top image, with the exception of an ISO of 2000. Nikon D7200 DSLR, Tokina Lens.

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Badlands Beauty

An opening in the clouds near Panorama Point in the Badlands of South Dakota at the start of golden hour provided a reddish tint to rock strata seen in the image above. Image captured at 5:39 pm MDT, Saturday, September 16, 2017.

A panorama at Pinnacles Overlook two minutes after sunset on September 16. Official sunset was at 6:57 pm MDT.

Entering Door Trail from the parking lot at the Badlands, 6:11 am MDT, Sunday, September 17, 2017. Official sunrise was at 6:31. Visible in the eastern sky in this image is the -3.94 magnitude planet Venus, and the waning crescent moon.

Moving farther into Door Trail moments later. The brilliant red sky was probably augmented by distant wildfires.

Rock pinnacles, tinted red from the rising sun at Badlands Door Trail are contrasted by white wispy cirrus clouds in a west-viewed blue background sky. Image captured at 6:51 am MDT, 20 minutes after official sunrise. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera. 1/160 second, f/16, ISO 320, 16mm focal length.

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Blazing Start To Vacation

Just over an hour into our drive westward to our intended destination at Badlands National Park in South Dakota on Saturday morning, September 16, 2017, the sky became ablaze just before and at sunrise. Quickly pulling off US Highway 20 on Grundy Road, about 3.5 miles west of Cedar Falls, Iowa, I was able to capture the brief but brilliant display before rains came only minutes later. Image above captured at 6:57 am, and below, a minute later. Official sunrise was at 6:58 am. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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More September Badlands Skies

The Pinnacles Overlook at Badlands National Park in South Dakota provides for many a beautiful vista for sunrise/sunsets. Saturday evening, September 16, 2017 was no exception. The location shown above was about a .2-mile walk over hummocky hills from the parking lot. Time was 6:40 pm MDT. The image was shot using Aperture Priority setting at f/11.

Similar shot at 6:51 pm. 1/100 second at f/9, 250 ISO and 28mm focal length. Official sunset was at 6:57 pm.

Two minutes after sunset. A panorama of the same area, including the overlook's lookout (left). 1/100 second at f/9, 250 ISO and 18mm focal length.

Door Trail area of the Badlands. 6:33 am MDT, Sunday, September 17, 2017. Official sunrise was 6:31 am. This image looks southwest and includes wisps of cirrus clouds. Perched on the red hillocks in the background with her iPad is Sue Alliss. The hillocks were reflecting the rising sun.

Similar image at 6:35 am. 1/40 second at f/10, 320 ISO, 11mm focal length. Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX II lens, Vanguard Alta Pro 263 AT tripod with SBH-100 ballhead.

Vertically-cropped variant of an earlier posted image from the Door Trail area to create a more dynamic  image of the Milky Way rising over a light-painted foreground area looking west. 4:12 am MDT, Monday, September 18, 2017. 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Brilliant Halo Over Devil's Tower

Walking the inner perimeter trail at Devil's Tower in Wyoming on Monday afternoon, September 18, 2017, the sky was mostly clear blue. Around 12:54 pm MDT, a small bank of cirrus clouds drifted directly overhead and began to create the sun halo seen in the iPhone camera image above. I had of course seen sun halos before, but this particular one was the most colorful and vivid as I had ever seen, and it was especially striking materializing over Devil's Tower-- (you know, with the Close Encounters of the Third Kind thing). Sun halos are produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere.

In just a few minutes the bank of cirrus clouds had passed, and with it the beautiful halo.

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Dark Skies Vacation

Our recent vacation to the Badlands and Black Hills in South Dakota and Devil's Tower in Wyoming provided some spectacular clear night sky photography results. Above, the sun peeks over the eastern horizon at 6:28 am MDT on Sunday, September 17, 2017, as seen from the Badlands Door trail in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. This is a HDR image.

Back to the same location but looking the opposite direction and at 4:12 am on Monday, September 18. Getting used to moving about in the creepy pitch black conditions along the Badlands Door Trail at this hour, I set up in an optimum area to capture the Milky Way, which stood out in breathtaking detail in the clear star-spangled sky. Sue Alliss provided a light painting effect by moving about 70 yards closer to the rock pinnacles seen in the background and playing a flashlight from left to right across them. This image captured was achieved with the use of a Tokina AT-X Pro DX II lens. It is a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length. The bright star at bottom right of the Milky Way is the magnitude 0.00 Vega in the constellation Lyra.

About an hour and a half later (5:44 am) and turning my attention east again, I had the wonderful opportunity to capture a not-so-frequent celestial conjunction above a scenic foreground element.
Glittering in the pre-dawn sky were, from bottom left: -0.92 magnitude planet Mercury, 1.82 magnitude planet Mars, the crescent moon, 1.34 magnitude star Regulus and the -3.94 magnitude planet Venus. Adding to the scene was a ground fog shrouded along the horizon in the background. This image was captured with my AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens.

Moving on to Devil's Tower National Monument in northeast Wyoming on Monday, September 18. Our location was at a local KOA just outside the gates of the grounds. The skies during the day were clear here and promised a fantastic night sky photo opp hours later. I soon experienced how fast a clear skies can turn overcast in these parts. In the above image, captured at 9:53 pm MDT, one can see quickly approaching clouds. I had wanted to get a good dark sky and the Milky Way to be close to Devil's Tower, but was only able to fire off this shot before the entire sky became obscured with clouds a short time later. In this image, a 20 second exposure at f/2.8, 5000 ISO and 11mm focal length, Devil's Tower is about .8-mile distant. Image looks WSW.

Opting to use my "body clock" only, I woke up several times later, and around 2:00 am September 19, the skies were once again relatively clear. The Milky Way had now moved right of Devil's Tower. Using the same exposure settings as previously except for focal length (16mm), this image was captured at 2:19 am. The bright object at right is the 0.00 magnitude star Vega, in the constellation Lyra.

Now on to Custer State Park in South Dakota. 12:06 am, Thursday, September 21. Stockade Lake--near where our camp cabin was located--provided for another spectacular foreground element with the Milky Way in the distant sky. This was also another creepy dark setting where every sound could be a mountain lion! This image, looking west from the eastern shore of Stockade Lake, is a 20 second exposure (Tokina lens) at f/2.8, 4000 ISO and 11mm focal length. The background glow is from the town of Custer, about four miles distant.

Later in the day (8:24 pm) and at our camp cabin. Looking northeast at the Milky Way. In this image our cabin was light painted by Sue Alliss, with a quick burst of the flashlight. Settings and lens were the same as the lake capture above it.

8:29 pm and looking the opposite direction. Same settings and lens. Stars in the skies here were such a contrast to those in Eastern Iowa, where only the brightest are seen due to light pollution. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Wild Wildfire Skies

No, I was not using a special filter to capture these images. It was the actual look of the skies on the evening of Monday, September 4, 2017 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Smoke from wildfires raging 1,200 miles distant and more in the state of Montana and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan tinted the skies over Iowa with a surreal yellowish-orange color. These two images were captured from the grounds at Noelridge Christian Church, with the above image looking northeast at 5:01 pm CDT, and the image below southeast at 5:05 pm. Despite the great distances of the fires, local respiratory advisories from meteorologists were issued for residents in Iowa. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Last Total Solar Eclipse Posting

Previously, I posted a 10-image sun sequence pic during the solar eclipse of Monday, August 21, 2017 as seen from Columbia, Missouri. The previous earliest eclipse phase time for that posting was at 12:15 pm CDT, a full half-hour after the start of C1 (first contact). From 11:40 am-12:15 pm I was being frustrated by the fact that I could not seemingly capture an image of the sun, evening using a 9-stop bracket on my Nikon D7200 DSLR camera. My back-of-camera monitor appeared totally black during these early capture attempts, and I could not understand what was causing this despite atmospheric haze and passing clouds. Even Adobe Lightroom did not appear to show anything captured (as it turned out I was shooting the sun with too fast of a shutter speed for the weather conditions that prevailed). Then, just for the heck of it, I selected one of the black images in Lightroom and moved the exposure slider all the way forward. I could see a faint image of the sun on it! I did this to all the "black" images and was able to use the best images (from bracketing). This now gave me a total of 13 images, with the first--the full sun at lower left of the combination image above--starting at 11:40 am, five minutes before C1. The white blob in the third image from the upper right is the last big flash of light from the sun before the diamond ring phase.

The settings info for each image, starting from the lower left: 1. 11:40 am CDT, 1/400 sec, f/5.6, 320 ISO, 300mm focal length; 2. 11:50 am, 1/160 sec, f/5.6, 320 ISO, 300mm; 3. 12:00 pm, 1/50 sec, f/5.6, 320 ISO, 270mm; 4. 12:10 pm, 1/400 sec, f/5.3, 320 ISO, 270mm; 5. 12:20 pm, 1/40 sec, f/5.6, 320 ISO, 270mm, 6. 12:30 pm, 1/100 sec, f/5.6, 400 ISO, 270mm; 7. 12:40 pm, 1/25 sec, f/5.6, 640 ISO, 270mm, 8. 12:50 pm, 1/5 sec, f/5.3, 640 ISO, 270mm; 9. 1:00 pm, 1/30 sec, f/5.3, 640 ISO, 270mm, 10. 1:05 pm, 1/13 sec, f/5.3 sec, 640 ISO, 270mm; 11. 1:12 pm, 1/30 sec, f/5.3, 640 ISO, 270mm; 12. 1:12 pm, 1/20 sec, f/5.3, 640 ISO, 270mm; 13. 1:12 pm, 1/50 sec, f.5.3, 640 ISO, 270mm.

Again, I selected the best of nine bracketed images to create each sun image.

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More Eclipse Images

This image is the same as the previous day's, but with time stamps below each element showing its progression more specifically. These captures took place at Columbia Cosmopolitan Recreation Center in Columbia, Missouri on Monday, August 21, 2017.

Single image of the sun, about one-third eclipsed. Time was 12:22 pm CDT. Imaged at 1/60th second at f/5.6, 320 ISO and 270mm focal length and a SeymourSolar 62mm solar filter. Haze and a thin veil of clouds prevented a hard focus lock.

End of totality and the sun has (unbeknownst to me) almost drifted out of the view of the camera. The sudden brightening of the "diamond ring" is illuminating surrounding clouds. 1/50th second at f/5.3, 640 ISO and 270mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Eclipse times for our location.

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August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse!

The day we all were waiting for finally came. And it was definitely worth the wait! Living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa I had only a few destination options to view the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017 because I only had that day off from work. One of the least desired was SE Nebraska, and the other SW Illinois. The better prospects were the Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis areas of Missouri. 

I selected the Kansas City area on the early morning of the 21st, and our car of four passengers headed west on Interstate 80. At Grinnell, I received a text from my son indicating that the Columbia option was probably the better choice because of probable better weather. We backtracked a few miles then headed south for Columbia. As we neared Columbia, we researched areas there to view the eclipse and found the sprawling Columbia Cosmopolitan Recreation Center, which was actually promoting eclipse watching. As it turned out, the Columbia option WAS a wise choice. The Kansas City area experienced heavy traffic on Interstate 35 and a heavy cloud cover. Though Columbia was not itself devoid of clouds, it would allow wonderful views of the spectacle. 

The image above is a ten-shot combination of the eclipse progression, starting at 12:15 pm CDT (lower left), and ending with the total eclipse image at 1:12 pm. Each shot was the best selection from a Nikon D7200 DSLR 9-stop bracket. I used a 62mm solar filter for the partial phases threaded over the 300mm lens. Settings were f/5.3 and 640 ISO, manual focus. Haze and light drifting clouds prevented me from capturing a "hard" focus of the sun's disk. 

This iPhone 6-Plus image of the sun at 1:02 pm--ten minutes before totality--shows a sun halo, and a curious lens light flare shaped like a crescent (arrow), which the sun actually looked like at this moment.

1:12 pm and the beginning of totality. Closeup of the "diamond ring" effect. Solar filter was now off the Nikon camera. Image captured at 1/125 second at f/5.3, 640 ISO. Again, passing thin clouds prevented a clear focus.

1:12 pm. GoPro Hero 4 Silver video frame capture of totality. The image is skewed because I hastily mounted the suction cup to a slanted Playmate cooler. My bad!

1:15 pm. Members of our eclipse viewing group observe the ending moments of totality. iPhone 6-Plus camera. The experience was a satisfying and awesome one--even in a spiritual sense--but in the end many of my photography goals did not meet up to expectations...but there is another US total solar eclipse in seven years...maybe then! 

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Another Sun Test

Although weather forecasts for the upcoming total solar eclipse on Monday are not at all favorable for the whole of the Midwest, I conducted another solar filter test on Friday afternoon, August 18, 2017. For this test I used my old Celestron 94168 F60 (EQ) mylar solar filter, intended for use on a 60mm refractor telescope. The settings for my Nikon D7200 DSLR camera were: 1/1600 shutter speed at f/9, ISO 640 and 300mm focal length. I simply placed the solar filter over the lens by hand and searched for the sun's disk. The left image shows the suns with clouds, while the right image is unobstructed. Note the three sunspots at left center of each disk. Sun images actually look blueish with this filter, but I warmed their "temperature" in Lightroom to create the image above. This was a handheld exposure test.

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The Fast And Slow Of It

Distant and high altitude cirrus clouds (background) appeared non-moving in this northwest sky perspective, looking NW from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Wednesday evening, August 16, 2017. In direct contrast to that, low altitude cumulus clouds--tinted reddish by the setting sun--virtually raced across the horizon from left-to-right. This image, shot at 7:35 pm CDT, was captured using Aperture Priority at f/11. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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Boiling and Roiling On August 10

There was plenty of convection action on isolated cells in Eastern Iowa on the afternoon of Thursday, August 10, 2017. Vertical cloud growths did not require time lapses as they were very noticeable to the naked eye. The cell seen above was captured at 3:45 pm CDT, with the camera looking east from Douglas Drive at Alburnett Road in north Marion, Iowa.

This 3:55 pm panorama looks southeast from the grounds at Oak Ridge Middle School in Marion. The western edge of the line of storms (foreground) was about 7 miles to the southeast, while the eastern edge (background, left) stretched about 53 miles to near Delmar, Iowa.

Radar image of the photograph above it, with my position indicated by the target icon.

4:20 pm. Eastbound on Boyson Road, just west of C Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids. Boiling storm cell is located about 18 miles distant, near the town of Morley. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

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