Gem Of A Geminids

This image is a composite of ten separate meteor streaks. The event was the peak of the Geminids meteor shower  on the night of Thursday, December 13--Friday, December 14, 2012. The first capture (the brightest and longest streak at right center) occurred at 11:13 PM, December 13 and the last around 12:10 AM on December 14. This meteor shower was the most active I have personally witnessed in several years as I counted about 17 very bright meteors and many more dim ones in an hour's time. The temperature this night for this time of year was ideal--around 30 degrees F. Then image looks east from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Each exposure was 27 seconds at f/3.5, 400 ISO and 18mm focal length. The radiant for the meteors is seen at top--the constellation Gemini. A portion of Orion is at upper right and the -1.47 magnitude star Sirius is at lower right. Unfortunately for me, the best meteor of the night began from just left of the tree and moved left (north), a long-track very bright streak.

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Come To The Land Of Ice And Snow...

It was my first NFL game ever. And (of course) it was the worst traveling day of late 2012. My daughter and I took part in a KHAK Radio promotional deal to attend the Minnesota Vikings/Chicago Bears football game at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Sunday, December 9, 2012. This was my Christmas present from her. The cost included bus fare, an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet before the game and two tickets to the contest. Our bus driver steered us skillfully from Iowa into Minnesota, where it soon began to snow heavily. In the top image, daughter Holly poses in falling snow outside the Metrodome at the corner of Chicago Avenue and South 6th Street, 45 minutes before game time. The bottom image, which includes our parked Windstar bus at left, looks southeast from just outside Hubert's Sports Bar & Grill at 6th Street N and North 1st Avenue. A total of 10.5 inches of snow would fall this day in the Minneapolis area. This Christmas present from my daughter was a good one as the Vikings defeated the Bears in the game, 21-14. A safe return home actually made the abundance of snow an enhancement of the experience.

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Bullish On Jupiter

Silhouetted tree branches in the foreground did nothing to diminish the glow of the -2.83 magnitude planet Jupiter (upper left) as it was rising in the eastern sky just before 8:30 PM on Tuesday, December 4, 2012. This image, a five second exposure at f/1.8, 1600 ISO and 35mm focal length, was captured from alongside the Boyson Park nature trail in western Marion, Iowa about a quarter mile south of Boyson Road and near the border of Cedar Rapids. Right of Jupiter is the constellation Taurus (The Bull), dominated by its brightest star Aldebaran (5 o'clock position from Jupiter). The giant planet reached opposition the night before. Opposition is when Jupiter is closest to Earth and when it rises as the sun sets and sets as the sun rises. Jupiter is currently closest to Earth than it will be again until 2021.

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Matched Pairs

There were some close couples in the dark skies of Wednesday, November 28, 2012. If you got up early enough on this day you could see two at the same time. The top image shows the planets Venus (lower) and Saturn around 5:28 AM looking east from Archer Drive in the new Bowman Meadows housing development just off Boyson Road in Marion, Iowa. The lights directly below the planets comes from a power station on Alburnett Road. At distant right along the tree line is the illuminated steeple of First United Methodist Church in downtown Marion. Venus and Saturn were in conjunction, within two degrees of one another. In the west sky at this moment, another cozy pair, the full moon and the planet Jupiter were within one degree of each other. The bottom image, shot from my driveway on Brentwood Drive in Cedar Rapids, shows the two later this day around 8:53 PM as they were rising in the east. Jupiter is above the moon, and the star Aldebaran can bee seen right of it. All bright objects in this image are veiled in a ghostly shroud of cirrus clouds.

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Pea Soup For Thanksgiving?

Thick fog formed during the night of Monday/Tuesday November 19/20, 2012 and never completely dissipated during midday on Tuesday, November 20. As darkness fell the fog re-intensified, dropping visibility to .25-mile or less. These three images were taken from near the corner of Boyson Road and Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Tuesday evening. The top photo looks west at approaching traffic on Boyson Road at 7:08 PM. It is a 1/10-second exposure at f/10, 1600 ISO and 18mm focal length. The middle photo looks south down Brentwood Drive at 7:15 PM. It is a 3.5-second exposure at f/22, 1600 ISO and 18mm focal length. The bottom photo looks east down Boyson Road toward Marion, Iowa at 7:11 PM. The red streaks of light are the taillights of passing cars. The image is a 16-second exposure at f/22, 1600 ISO and 18mm focal length. The red orbs of light are street lamps. Weather conditions at this moment was: 42 degrees F, 100% humidity and a dew point of 41 degrees. Fog was definitely thick as pea soup!

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Cowardly Lion

There were plenty of stars in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning, November 17, 2012, but very few of them were falling. This image of the east sky, taken around 3:15 AM, shows only the quiet nature of prime time Leonids Meteor Shower. One of only two dim meteors I saw this night from about 3:00-5:00 AM missed this frame completely, streaking downward well above the three bright stars of Ursa Major (The Big Dipper) at upper left. Some sources touted this year's display as "being favorable for observers in North America," but this was a decided disappointment. I was left shivering in 30 degree F temps with no more meteors seen than on a normal night. This image looks east along Radio Road (right) in northeast Marion, Iowa, about .3-mile east of Highway 13. It is a 30 second exposure at f/3.5, 400 ISO and 18mm focal length. The constellation Leo (the Lion, from where the Leonids gets its name) is at upper right.

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Conjunction Display

The planet Jupiter (top) and a waning gibbous moon made a close bright pair as they appeared only a few degrees apart in the eastern sky. The moon shone at magnitude -12.53 and Jupiter at magnitude -2.73. This composite image was captured from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 8:55 PM CDT, Thursday, November 1, 2012. The foreground image was shot at 1/5 second at f/5.6, 2000 ISO and 200mm focal length. The moon and Jupiter were shot at 1/2000 second at f/14, 2000 ISO and 200mm focal length.

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