A few mornings ago the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico conducted a test of the Patriot interceptor, producing iridescent rocket exhaust visible across the early morning sky of northern Arizona.
Exhaust trails from rockets launched in New Mexico as part of a test.
From the SpaceWeather.com web site: “…The test proceeded as follows: A Juno rocket was launched from Fort Wingate in Gallup, New Mexico. This served as the target for another missile, the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 interceptor, launched shortly thereafter from White Sands. A press release from White Sands confirmed the test and stated that “the Juno performed as expected…”
Iridescence in the exhaust trails from a rocket launch over New Mexico.
It’s not often that you get to see a missile launch from Arizona.
The North American Monsoon was going strong in late August and I decided to take a day trip up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. My goal was to photograph lightning — both during the daytime and in the twilight hours — over and in the canyon.
I wasn’t disappointed. There were only a few thunderstorms around and that makes for better chances since there are fewer intervening storms and there is a better chance of catching some of the sky.
The first two images are of fairly weak thunderstorms producing only a few flashes as they traversed the canyon from south to north.
Early afternoon lightning over the Grand Canyon.Afternoon lightning over the Grand Canyon from Grandview Point.
Later in the evening there was thunderstorm activity over the Kaibab Plateau and the north rim. This image captures the small thunderstorm as well as the stars overhead and the lights of the North Rim buildings.
Evening lightning over the Grand Canyon from Grandview Point.
The last image was taken as the storms ended leaving only a thin layer of clouds with the stars shining brightly and the inner canyon illuminated by the light of the full moon.
Full moon light shining down into Grand Canyon.
A few notes of interest. While taking lightning photos using my lightning trigger, a group of four photographers showed up at the same viewpoint — all with the same lightning trigger. And later, during the twilight hours, another group of lightning photographers arrived at the same viewpoint. Turns out these were folks from News9.com (an Oklahoma City television station). It’s not clear to me how lightning over the Grand Canyon is part of the news team coverage for Oklahoma City.
It’s still the rainy season but this is silly. The amount of rain that has fallen in Bellemont, Arizona, in August is quickly approaching eight inches. Meanwhile, a few miles away at the Flagstaff airport, a more reasonable two and one-half inches has fallen this month. Most of that rain in Bellemont has fallen in the past few days. As a result, the ground is fairly saturated and there is plenty of standing water. This produces good conditions for nighttime fog in the area.
Fog during the pre-dawn morning hours.
The first image was taken well before sunrise with plenty of stars visible. More striking, however, is the patch of fog and low clouds on the right — nicely illuminated by the lights.
Early morning fog creeping down the hillside.
The next image was taken shortly after sunrise and shows the fog lurking on the hills above the flats of Bellemont. The trees poke out through the top and the light poles add some foreground texture to the image.
The full moon occurred on 04 June and there was an early morning partial eclipse — but I slept through it. The two evenings prior to the full moon, however, provided an opportunity to photograph the rising moon as the sun still cast light and color on the red rocks.
Stereo pair of Cathedral Rock, Sedona, Arizona.
Using The Photographers Ephemeris (TPE) I was able to pre-determine where to set up to photograph the moon as it traversed above the towers that make up Cathedral Rock. As the moon rose up and to the right I moved my position to the left to keep the moon in the larger gap. The unintended consequence of this movement is that I was able to get these similar — but slightly different — images about five minutes and 50 meters apart. Putting them together side-by-side makes a good stereo pair using the cross-eyed viewing method — that is, as long as you don’t object to having two moons in the 3-D image.
Moonrise over Oak Creek, Sedona, Arizona.
The following night I set up in a different location and was able to capture the moon as it rose from behind these cliffs with this large home in the foreground.
The transit of Venus across the face of the Sun on 05-06 June 2012 UTC was an amazing sight. Even more amazing is the rarity of this event. Transits of Venus occur in pairs approximately eight years apart then not repeated again for over one hundred years. Since this was the second transit of the pair the next will not occur until the year 2117. So, if you wanted to see a transit, this was your last best chance!
NASA has compiled some stunning video and images of the transit. The SpaceWeather site also has information and a user gallery of images.
Venus transiting the sun at 1523 MST (2223 UTC). The full disk of the planet is visible at this time.
I was able to capture several images of the transit including first contact at ~2206 UTC and when the full disk first became completely visible in front of the sun.
Venus transiting the sun as the sun sets behind the low mountains west of Flagstaff. Image shot using a ND3 filter.
As the sun began to set behind the mountains west of Flagstaff I was able to capture this image with the lower portion of the sun already behind the trees.
Composite image of (1) filtered image of the sun and Venus in transit and (2) the darkening sky a few minutes after sunset.
This image is a composite of a filtered image of the sun followed a few minutes later by a standard exposure showing the colors in the evening sky as well as numerous birds.
