Terrestrial Nebulae

In my opinion summers in this part of East Texas are not great for astronomy. Most are hot, dry and hazy. Some are hot, rainy and cloudy. This summer has been the latter. The forecast shows clear skies for the coming week, but the moon will be right around the full phase. Maybe we'll have better astronomy weather next month. In the meantime, I'm keeping myself entertained with the clouds, of which there are plenty to see. Here are some videos I made yesterday before, during and after a short rain shower.

Click on the images to load the videos. All of the videos are in Windows Media Video (WMV) format.

A cloud forms and dissipates from a column of rising air. I didn't have the camera set up correctly for this one, so the exposure times were variable, resulting in a sort of "blinking" effect. (2 MB)

Clouds form, a storm passes by. The big drops visible toward the end are from water dripping off of the roof. (7.8 MB)

Clouds forming after the rain. (2 MB)

You will probably notice a dot to the lower-right of center in all of these videos. I think there's a speck on my camera's imaging chip, but I have yet to find it.

Clouds

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right? Clouds are the bane of astronomers, unless you're doing radio astronomy. It has been very cloudy here on the edge of the Piney Woods lately. Still, I think clouds are fun to watch. Click on the image below to load a Windows Media Video of a cloud boiling away. The video compresses about 25 minutes into 15 seconds. The file is about 11.4 MB.

A smaller version of the video (2.25 MB) is available here.

Lightning!

I usually use a DSLR to capture lightning images, but this time I set up my Samsung Galaxy S III in the window at my office and caught a couple of strikes on video. I converted the MP4 video file to AVI and used VirtualDub to copy and paste the individual frames with lightning in them to Paint.NET to save them to files. The first strike was split up between a couple of frames, so I combined them using Startrails. Pretty cool for a phone, huh?

Look carefully where the bolt meets the ground and you can see the reflection of my hand in the window.

Lightning!

Lightning!

It's Spring in East Texas, and that means lots of thunderstorms!

Lightning!

Lightning, November 26, 2012

Lightning!

Lightning!

Texas has been experiencing its worst drought since the 1950s, so it is understandable that we get excited when a little rain comes our way. I get doubly excited because it gives me an opportunity to photograph lightning. A storm came through this evening, bringing some much needed rain and some Big Scary Lightning. I started off photographing from the back porch, but self-preservation kicked in after a few minutes and I moved inside and set up at a window. Here is the best shot of the evening:

The little smudges that dot the image are water drops falling from the roof. The odd device to the lower-right is a satellite dish.

I can not emphasize this enough: LIGHTNING IS DEADLY. If you can hear thunder then you are well within the danger zone for a lightning strike. I do not recommend that anyone attempt to photograph lightning; but, for those of you who have made up your minds that you are going to do it, here are some guidelines that I follow:

• Set the camera to Manual mode.
• Focus the camera on a distant object. I use autofocus if it is bright enough outside. Once focused, I turn off autofocus.
• Lightning images are best made at night.
• Pick an area of the sky that looks promising for lightning activity. This can be hit-or-miss, depending on the nature of the storm. Move the camera as the storm progresses to increase the chances of capturing lightning.
• Use a steady tripod and place the camera in a location where it will not get wet or blown over.
• Set the ISO to a low setting (I use ISO-100).
• Take 5-second exposures (shorter if the sky is bright) to help bring out the surrounding features. Also, longer exposures mean that the camera will spend less time processing the image and more time imaging the sky. Remember, lightning is fast!
• Use the lock on the remote control cable to take multiple exposures. 99.9% of the images will have nothing of interest in them, so expect to take a lot.
• Work from a safe location! Outdoors and near windows are not safe locations. Set up, lock the remote control, and get to safety!

Lightning!

Here are some shots of lightning taken from my back porch on May 25, 2011.

Lightning

A Big Scary Thunderstorm--complete with heavy rain, lightning and hail--passed over us this evening. Before the rain and hail started, though, I managed to get a few pictures of the lightning from the relative safety of my front door.

Lightning!

I've been trying to photograph lightning for quite a while.  It's pretty tough to get good shots.  It takes patience, and a good deal of luck.  So far my efforts have been mediocre at best.

This evening I got my best shots so far.  While our neighbors in Montgomery County were getting pounded by powerful thunderstorms, I was taking snapshots of all of the excitement from my front yard.  Below are the best two shots of the series.  They are 5-second exposures, taken at ISO-1600.

Sundog

This is a sundog that appeared in our sky on August 8, 2010.  Sundogs are created by ice crystals in the atmosphere.  Even in warm climates, like ours, they can appear in high clouds.  The sun is out of frame to the right.