A tree, backlit by a street light on Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, illuminates the frost fog accumulated on it around 6:45 AM, Monday, December 27, 2010. The frosty coating rendered all exposed surfaces Monday morning into a veritable fantasy land. Temperatures at this time hovered around 9 degrees F.
An aircraft path and its contrail (left) glows ghostly in the eastern sky of Marion, Iowa around 6:30 PM, December 22, 2010. A couple minutes earlier a faint meteor left a barely visible contrail in the same part of the sky. The reason for the illuminated contrails in this dark sky was the fact that a nearly full moon was just minutes away from peeking over the northeast horizon. The foreground is a former soybean field in the process of conversion to a housing development. The contrail at left is in the constellation Gemini. Low on the horizon at center is Orion and above Orion is Taurus. This is a 28-second exposure at f/5, 18mm focal length and 400 ISO.
Merry Christmas!
Our son Ryan Alliss, a meteorology major at Iowa State University, conducted his senior thesis presentation at Agronomy Hall on the campus of ISU on Monday morning, December 6, 2010. The presentation was part of the 18th Annual Iowa State University Atmospheric Science Undergraduate Research Symposium. Ryan is shown in the larger photo explaining his research of CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy)--a meteorological term for energy that is released when water condenses--to professors, peers and family members in attendance. His thesis was titled Quasi-Linear Convective System Mesovorticies, and counted for about 10% of his total meteorology grade. Less than two weeks later he received his Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology during graduation ceremonies (inset photo) at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa on Friday evening, December 17. Congratulations, Ryan! We are all very proud of you!
Clouds had prohibited a view of the lunar eclipse over Cedar Rapids, Iowa around 2:00 AM on this day, December 21, 2010, but this striking view of altocumulus undulatus clouds reflected by the setting sun around 4:12 PM sparkled the southwest sky as seen from Bowman Woods Park. The view was brief as skies became overcast minutes later. The winter solstice arrived shortly afterward at 5:38 PM CST. Air temperature was 25 degrees F.
A waxing gibbous moon moves
Braving the intense cold and a sleepy early morning rising, I captured these two meteor streaks, part of the Geminid meteor shower which peaked on Tuesday, December 14, 2010. This view looks SW over Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is a composite image, with the upper meteor streak and the background shot at 4:25 AM and the lower meteor streak shot at 4:45 AM. The streaks are passing through the constellation Taurus (right, lower) after emanating from the radiant point in Gemini (upper, center). The bright star between the trees at lower left is Betelgeuse in Orion, and the bright star at upper right is Capella in Auriga. The air temperature during this photo session was -3 degrees F. Less than two hours later, the sky clouded over. This was a 21 second exposure at f/3.5, focal length of 18mm and an ISO rating of 1250.
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