Clear skies and light winds presented an opportunity to photograph the Milky Way with reflections in smooth water. Upper Lake Mary had the best orientation to look down the lake. In addition, accessing this lake is very easy with a parking lot just a short distance from where the image was taken. Finally, another factor is this past winter had a lot of snowmelt that filled the lake to capacity for the first time in several years.
Milky Way with reflections in Upper Lake Mary.
It’s interesting that the star colors are more saturated in the reflections compared to the sky.
The glow on the right is the light dome from Phoenix.
Venus and the Pleiades star cluster are prominent in the center of the image while Mercury is about to set in the low gap. The zodiacal light is also faintly visible.
Upper Lake Mary, Flagstaff, Arizona; 10 April 2023.
Venus, Mercury, Pleiades, and Zodiacal light all reflected in Lake Mary.
This Winter has been relentless with snowfall now at about 200% of normal for Flagstaff. Many of these storms have made it difficult to get to various locations for shooting photos of the weather. Fortunately, the last few storms have allowed me to do some pre-dawn travel to favorite locations.
The first two photos are from the morning of 16 March 2023 when I thought there was a good chance of low clouds and fog in Grand Canyon. In fact, there was too much fog and I was only able to briefly see into the canyon while at Lipan Point. I finally moved westward to Moran Point where there was a larger break in the fog allowing sunlight to illuminate the canyon.
Early morning fog in Grand Canyon from Lipan Point.Early morning fog in Grand Canyon from Moran Point.
A week later we had a snow-turning-to-rain event that left the roads relatively easy to travel and I ventured out to Mormon Lake on the morning of 23 March 2023. The abundance of moisture over the previous few days resulted in lots of fog in low-lying basins including Lake Mary and Mormon Lake. Clear skies to the east allowed the rising sun to illuminate the San Francisco Peaks in the distance.
The distant San Francisco Peaks rise above fog filling Mormon Lake basin.Fog fills Mormon Lake Basin. A faint Glory is seen left of center while a short segment of a fogbow is right of center.A fogbow along Upper Lake Mary.
I was also interested in capturing images with a Glory/Brocken Spectre and fogbows. Both were faintly visible in some of the photos where I was above the fog. A better fogbow photo was shot when I was in the fog.
And here is a time-lapse video of the swirling fog in the Mormon Lake basin.
Time-lapse video of fog swirling in Mormon Lake basin.
The medium-range forecasts indicate that Winter is not yet done.
As mentioned in the previous post, the planets Venus and Mercury passed very close to each other in the evening twilight sky a few nights ago. In fact, this conjuction is the closest conjunction of these two planets until 2033. I chose to photograph the two planets the night before closest approach as I was interested in getting a bit of separation of the two in both the sky and their reflections in the water.
Venus and Mercury in evening twilight (2025 MST 27 May 2021).Venus and Mercury in evening twilight (2037 MST 27 May 2021).
The first image was taken at 2025 MST 27 May 2021 with an 85mm focal length. The second image was taken a short time later at 2035 MST with a focal length of 120mm.
In the first image, there is a very nice and long reflection of Venus in the water; the reflection of Mercury is also present but is faint and diffuse. In the second image, the planets were just a few minutes away from dropping below the ridge to the northwest. In this image, the reflections of both planets are easily seen.
The weather cooperated nicely with light winds allowing reflections on the smooth water of Upper Lake Mary.
And so it begins. The North American Monsoon has begun with many thunderstorms but not much rain. As a result, lightning-sparked wildfires are a possibility.
Just by chance, I was heading out towards Mormon Lake this morning to capture images of the building thunderstorms over the San Francisco Peaks. I had noticed that the early buildups had some interesting structure—a combination of convective vertical growth as well as some laminar wave clouds.
As I drove towards Upper Lake Mary I saw a small plume of smoke from a wildfire. Moments later, I spotted a helicopter dropping water on the fire.
Fortunately, the fire was a very short distance from the lake allowing multiple passes in quick succession.
Helicopter lifting water bucket from Lake Mary.Helicopter approaching Lake Mary to refill bucket.
The recent increase in moisture and a slight cooling of temperatures that we’ve experienced over the past few days will result in good chances of quickly containing this wildfire.
Ligntning map for 07 July 2018.
The lightning map for 07 July 2018 shows plenty of lightning across the higher terrain–so it’s likely this fire was caused by lightning.
