Tag: San Francisco Peaks

Lightning across the landscape of northern Arizona

The North American Monsoon (NAM) is in full swing across the southwestern states and the daily showers and thunderstorms present many opportunities for dramatic lighting and lightning.

Earlier this week I traveled to the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park hoping to get some sunset images with storm clouds hanging over the canyon. Well, there certainly were clouds — and there wasn’t much of a sunset. The backup plan was to photograph lightning. On this count, the storms didn’t disappoint. There was a storm to the west and I was able to point the camera across the lines of cliffs and rock faces that were already falling into deep shadow in the late twilight. And off in the distance was a great flash of lightning.

Lightning over the Grand Canyon.
Lightning over the Grand Canyon.

A few days later I tried once again to capture twilight lightning — this time at Sunset Crater National Monument. A storm developed in early evening and moved to the northeast over the lower terrain of the Painted Desert in the Little Colorado River Valley.

Lightning over the Painted Desert of northern Arizona.
Lightning over the Painted Desert of northern Arizona.

In the foreground can be seen the Ponderosa Pine trees at the higher elevations in the Monument; in the middle distance are some of the many cinder cones that are a part of the San Francisco Volcanic Field; in the far distance are the lower elevations of the Painted Desert.

Lightning over the Painted Desert of northern Arizona.
Lightning over the Painted Desert of northern Arizona.

With the typical NAM lasting through early September there should be plenty of opportunities for more dramatic lightning photographs.

The final flight of the Discovery

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An era has come to an end as the NASA space shuttle Discovery landed earlier this week after a successful mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This was the last flight for Discovery and it will now be retired to a museum.

After Discovery undocked from the ISS their orbits began to separate with the shuttle flying across the sky a few tens of seconds earlier than the ISS. On the night before returning to Kennedy Space Center, the ISS and Discovery made two evening twilight passes across the southwestern United States.

ISS and STS-133 transiting the northern sky above the San Francisco Peaks.
ISS and STS-133 transiting the northern sky above the San Francisco Peaks.

The first pass came early in the evening with a still bright twilight sky. The ISS and Discovery only rose to about 17 degrees above the horizon and this made it easy to capture an image with the San Francisco Peaks and the Kachina wetlands in the same photograph.

ISS and STS-133 climbing out of the western sky and entering the Earths shadow as they approach the lunar disk.
ISS and STS-133 climbing out of the western sky and entering the Earths shadow as they approach the lunar disk.

About 95 minutes later a second pass occurred. This time the two spacecraft arose from the western sky and climbed higher towards the crescent moon before disappearing into the Earths shadow.

Only two more shuttle missions remain and then, truly, it will be the end of an era.

Dance of the clouds

The weather across much of the country has been very dramatic the past few days with snow storms, ice storms, strong winds, and brutal cold. Across Arizona we experienced exceptionally cold weather as the Arctic air mass settled in across the area. Strong northeast winds at the surface and aloft helped to drive the cold air across the Rocky Mountain barrier and deep into the southwest.

The northeast winds also created some fantastic wave clouds over the San Francisco Peaks, located to the north of Flagstaff. Normally, strong southwest winds roll across the Peaks and the best wave clouds are located to the northeast but this wind reversal resulted in a reversal of the wave clouds as well.

Delicate wave clouds dance across the San Francisco Peaks.
Delicate wave clouds dance across the San Francisco Peaks.

Video here.

Even more interesting were the clouds that were forming just below the tops of the peaks. Strong winds from the northeast drove cold air into the Inner Basin on the east side then up and over the top of the peaks. As the air ascended thin wispy clouds would form. Just as quicky the air descended on the southwest slopes and the clouds evaporated.

The rapidly changing clouds and detailed structure were fascinating to watch. A time-lapse movie clearly shows this incredible dance of the clouds as it moves across the Peaks.

Mountain biking at 38 degrees

Thirty-eight degrees. Temperature — not latitude.

Fall has arrived in northern Arizona and the leave are turning colors and, in some cases, have already fallen. We went on a mountain bike ride on one of our favorite section of the Arizona Trail the other day so that we could view the aspen trees in their autumn glory. A cold front had passed through a day earlier and it was quite cold that morning with temperatures only in the upper 30s. So we bundled up with a few extra layers, caps and gloves, and off we went.

Riding the Arizona Trail at 8000 feet elevation and 38 degrees Fahrenheit. All you have to do is bundle up!
Riding the Arizona Trail at 8000 feet elevation and 38 degrees Fahrenheit. All you have to do is bundle up!
Riding an easy stretch of the Arizona Trail. The aspen leaves have fallen and left a carpet of color on the trail.
Riding an easy stretch of the Arizona Trail. The aspen leaves have fallen and left a carpet of color on the trail.

The only problem was that the rain from a few days earlier had left the trails pretty muddy and with the cool weather they had not dried yet. Suddenly we found our tires and bikes caked with mud. Eventually it became too difficult to ride as the mud accumulated on the tires, in the brakes, derailleurs, and anywhere else mud can collect. And that’s a lot of places!

A grove of aspen trees in full autumn color on the San Francisco Peaks.
A grove of aspen trees in full autumn color on the San Francisco Peaks.

New snow on the higher elevations of the San Francisco Peaks stands in contrast to a grove of aspen in full autumn color.
New snow on the higher elevations of the San Francisco Peaks stands in contrast to a grove of aspen in full autumn color.

So we abandoned the ride to return another day. Still, it was a pleasant enough day with plenty of color to view in the aspen trees in Flagstaff at 8000 feet and 38 degrees–especially with the new snow on the San Francisco Peaks.

Perseid meteor shower

Did you get a chance to view the Perseid meteor shower this year? It peaked on the evening of August 12-13 but meteors were visible for many days preceding the peak. With the moon just a few days past new and setting early the skies were very dark for optimal viewing. A maximum rate of more than 100 meteors per hour has been reported with this years event. This compares with a more typical maximum rate of about 50-80 per hour. So this was a better than average event with higher numbers as well as very dark skies.

Triple planetary conjunction of Venus, Mars, and Saturn along with the crescent moon.
Triple planetary conjunction of Venus, Mars, and Saturn along with the crescent moon.

But to make things even better there was a three-way planetary conjunction taking place at the same time. In the western sky after sunset an observer could see the planets Venus, Mars, and Saturn close together along with the crescent moon.

For the meteors, I used a 28mm wide angle lens, ISO 3200, f/4.0, and 30s exposures. I set the camera to continuous shooting mode and let it run until the card filled a few hours later. I then reclined on a lounge chair with a sleeping bag draped over me.

Two Perseid meteors streak across the early morning sky a few days before the peak.
Two Perseid meteors streak across the early morning sky a few days before the peak.
Perseid meteor passes by the constellation Pleiades.
Perseid meteor passes by the constellation Pleiades.
Perseid meteor streaks across the Milky Way with the San Francisco Peaks on the horizon.
Perseid meteor streaks across the Milky Way with the San Francisco Peaks on the horizon.

Even though I saw a large number of meteors with my eyes — and some of them were spectacular long-path events with residual debris trails — the camera captured far fewer because the field of view of even a wide angle is not wide enough to view the entire sky