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Some Atmospheric Optics observations

Started by member010719 , Jun 01 2016 08:33 AM

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343 replies to this topic

#76 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 16 February 2017 - 02:38 PM

You're welcome, Ziridava.

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#77 member010719

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Posted 18 February 2017 - 08:08 AM

I don't like to travel.

I'm doing all my observations from my place , at ten minutes walk from the downtown of a 190.000 city.

However I decided to choose some virtual dark sites for my peace of mind.

One is Calar Alto in Spain.

The other is at Paranal in Chile.

Anybody have acces to their web cameras.

Virgil Scurtu , one of my friends ,suggested this method to me.

Directly related to the subject of this thread here are two pics of the Belt of Venus at Paranal , on 15 of February.

Now a bit off-topic.

What else can be seen ?

Well , the resolution of webcams is about that of naked eyes.

Which for a dark site means a lot.

This is just one print screen took on 26 of January at Paranal.

This is the Moon as seen on 15 of February.

The webcam at Calar Alto is not so friendly , you don't have any control and the best I found is fixed toward North.

However one can see Alcor and Mizar as a double star and the star 11 UMi located close to the East of Gamma UMi.

Alcor Mizar and Gamma UMi 11UMi at Calar Alto

I would say very convenient dark site observations !

Ziridava

Edited by ziridava, 18 February 2017 - 08:09 AM.

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#78 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:33 PM

Sundogs appeared briefly last Friday afternoon. The one to the left of the Sun displayed a bit of color.

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#79 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 03:40 PM

The sunset that evening was spectacular. Venus and a jet airliner can be seen in the fourth shot.

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#80 GeneT

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 04:11 PM

Really, really nice!

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#81 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 23 February 2017 - 09:25 PM

Thanks. Here's one more from Friday evening and some from another beautiful sunset yesterday evening. All of the photographs were taken with a Canon PowerShot SX700 HS camera.

Dave Mitsky

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#82 member010719

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Posted 24 February 2017 - 04:01 PM

Dave

What else to say : ''What a beautiful World !''

Thank you for sharing this very nice pictures , Ziridava

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#83 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 25 February 2017 - 04:16 PM

Here's a photo of the Belt of Venus and the Earth's shadow that I took yesterday from a park that overlooks the Susquehanna River and Harrisburg. Unfortunately, it was a bit hazy and the characteristic color of the anti-twilight arch was barely noticeable. I also took a shot of the sunset from the park.

Dave Mitsky

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#84 hm insulators

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 01:20 PM

Beautiful pictures!

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#85 csrlice12

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 02:56 PM

A couple from about a week ago:

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#86 thomasr

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 04:51 PM

The sunset that evening was spectacular. Venus and a jet airliner can be seen in the fourth shot.

You took quite a risk. That first photo clearly indicates that section of sky is closed to viewing.

Sent from my LG-H915 using Tapatalk

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#87 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 09:07 PM

I thought of it more as X marks the spot!

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#88 member010719

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Posted 02 March 2017 - 04:14 PM

Monday I saw with the naked eyes and I took some pics of a halo around Venus.

On the picture the diameter of the ''Venusian'' halo is smaller than what I saw visually.

Visually , the diameter of the halo was about half the length of one brick also visible in the pic.

Knowing the distance to that wall and the dimensions of a brick , I found using ''arctan'' function , that the diameter of the halo was 0,32 degree or 19 arc minutes.

Ziridava

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#89 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 02 March 2017 - 08:45 PM

Here's a photo of Wednesday's sunset.

Dave Mitsky

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#90 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 02 March 2017 - 08:55 PM

I was able to see Venus naked-eye before sunset this evening.

The sunset didn't turn out to be all that colorful.

Dave Mitsky

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#91 krp

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Posted 03 March 2017 - 05:56 PM

I spotted this iridescent cloud a couple weeks ago. The colors were very noticeable, especially with sunglasses.

Iridescence by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr

This 22 degree halo formed last week in Yellowstone while it was snowing.

Mammoth Halo by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr

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#92 rogan

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Posted 03 March 2017 - 06:44 PM

I snapped this at 3500 ft. at Waimea Canyon, Kauai. It was a little odd being well above the rainbow.

Edited by rogan, 03 March 2017 - 06:45 PM.

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#93 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 04 March 2017 - 03:49 PM

Sunset on Friday evening from two different locations...

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#94 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 06 March 2017 - 02:49 AM

I took these photos at a nearby creek as the Sun set on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy in the east to get any shots of the Belt of Venus.

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#95 wfektar

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Posted 08 March 2017 - 12:54 AM

Some really good photos in this thread ... Anyway ...

What looks like a giant aircraft carrier 100 miles long is a massive supercell cumulonimbus off the coast of China somewhere between Hong Kong and Taiwan, taken from about 10 km altitude several years back. Rising air in the cloud reaches the tropopause, which acts as a capping inversion, and spreads out to form a characteristic anvil (the deck of the carrier). The "control tower" of the carrier is the overshooting top, the core of the storm where updraft velocities are high enough to punch well into the stratosphere. I don't have a sounding for the system, but from soundings from coastal stations in the general area it appears that tropopause heights were around 16-17 km, so the overshooting top is at least 20 km high.

Even stranger are the crepuscular rays. Aerosol loadings fall off rapidly with height and in the stratosphere are extremely low. The exception is when there is a large volcanic eruption. There were a few small smokers active in Indonesia (as usual) but none powerful enough to send aerosol that high. Eyjafjallajokul half a world away was active, but AFAICT its plume hadn't yet reached that far. At least the soundings nearby show no tropospheric inversion and anyway it took a long time to fly by this thing so that probably is the tropopause we're seeing. The guy at atoptics.com thought it was from light refracting back into the troposphere. Not unreasonable except that aerosol loadings in the upper troposphere aren't usually much higher than in the stratosphere. So where are the crepuscular rays coming from? Why is there so much aerosol at those altitudes?

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#96 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 09 March 2017 - 03:05 PM

Some odd-looking cloud bands were visible again on the evening of March 6th.

Dave Mitsky

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#97 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 10 March 2017 - 02:27 PM

I snapped these shots of the Belt of Venus and the Earth's shadow using my iPhone 4s on the evening of March 8th. The first one was taken before the shadow of the Earth became noticeable. Unfortunately, I was not aware that the camera was set on square for the second two images.

Dave Mitsky