Sunrise Solar Eclipse 6/10/2021

 

Partial Solar Eclipse  with Old Presque Isle Lighthouse

  Though the actual sunrise was obscured by a narrow thick band of clouds, I was able to get some photos of the crescent sun as it rose a little higher.  

Frustrating band of clouds

Clouds thinned to the point that they enhanced the color

Solar filter required for the clear patch of sky

Moon, Venus and the Lights Across the Lake 4/26/2020

   In yesterday's post I mentioned that the atmospheric conditions that make the city lights from Sheboygan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin visible from the east shore of Lake Michigan occur a couple of times per year.  That was based on the number of  times that I happen to view them while I drove to work over the past few years. But now that I live on the lake shore and have a relatively dark sky, it seems that the phenomena occurs much more frequently as I saw it two nights in a row.

    As we saw yesterday, the shape-shifting of the sun as it set made it apparent that some atmospheric shenanigans were at hand.  The two lingering bright stripes in the photo below were as bright as the sun had been as it was setting, but this photo was taken 3 minutes after the sun went down.

  The lead group of 40 Starlink launch 7 satellites made a dimmer passage at a lower elevation than they did on Friday.  

Starlink Satellites

Orion to the left, Taurus to the right, flanking the Moon and Venus

Orion and the Moon

The head of Taurus the Bull represented by the 'V', and the Pleiades

Moon and Venus just before they set.

Lights of Wisconsin, As Seen From Michigan 4/25/2020

Sheyboygan is lovely this time of year

    A few times per year from the shores of Lake Michigan atmospheric conditions refract light in such a way as to make the city lights in Wisconsin visible from the Michigan side, 60+  miles away.
  The photo below is toward Manitowoc and they could be radio towers.....

.....or they could be the taillights of a bunch of cars crashed into a bunch of houses

I googled Manitowoc at night and this image resulted

   Should have known some atmospheric funny business was in store when the setting sun couldn't decide if it wanted to set or rise.

  I had taken video of the sunset but when I went to rename all the files in the folder, poof...they all disappeared.  Checked all the folders on the computer but couldn’t find them. Then I  searched the recycle bin but they weren’t there either.  So the remaining photos come from the previous night when similar atmospheric conditions occurred but lack of transparency prevented the city lights from being seen. 

Sunset and Thunderstorm 8/28 & 8/29 2019

    As beautiful as a sunset can be over Lake Michigan, it got kicked up a notch as recent volcanic activity in western Pacific have infused the stratosphere with sulfurous aerosols which are adding purple and gold to sunrises and sets in the northern hemisphere. 

   Last Wednesday I went down to the lakeshore and unsuccessfully tried to photograph the green flash (saw it but overexposed it) at sunset.  In the twilight aftermath the clouds and sky took on vivid hues to make a great backdrop for two Ludington icons.

The SS Badger and the Ludington Lighthouse

  Tried again for the green flash the next night but it didn't materialize but thunderstorms 50 miles to the south made the effort worthwhile.

Green Flash 9/23/2018

   When the Sun sets on an unobstructed horizon a phenomenon known as the Green Flash is sometimes visible.  The green color is due to the atmosphere working as a prism and breaking the Sun's image into its component colors with the green image being the last to set.

Hint of green around the edges

Green becomes a little more apparent

Mostly Green (but not always)

Everything's Gone Green

Black Hole Sun

    In the two days that I spent in Eastern Oregon leading up to Monday's total eclipse, I asked a few locals where they intended to view the eclipse.  I was kind of surprised that some of them planned to view from their homes just outside of the path of totality.  Although 99.7% rounds up to 100%  and that is adequate in most situations, it doesn't compare when it comes to eclipses.

99.7%

    When 99.7% of the Sun is covered you're still looking at the Sun.  When 100% of the Sun is covered you're able to see the elusive corona and prominences the filaments of particles attempting to escape the solar surface.

100%

     The eclipsed Sun is comparable in brightness to a Full Moon.

    During the 1 minute 56 seconds of totality I was frantically operating and adjusting 2 cameras, one with a 500mm lens and the other wide angle 28mm lens.  During the fleeting moment of the 'diamond-ring' effect as the last (first) ray of sunlight disappears (appears)  at the beginning (end) of totality, the Sun and Moon combination looks like a ring of corona with one bright point shining like a diamond. At those opportunities I should have been manning the telephoto equipped camera, Instead I only (accidentally) caught it with the wide field camera.

  Crop of photo above shows a diffraction obscured 'Diamond-ring' effect.

     A little longer exposure shows the sparsely illuminated foreground during totality.

   A crop of that photo shows the star Regulus to the lower left of the eclipse. Click on photo below to see it.

   Another neat effect observable during the partial phases before and after totality is that light passing through a small aperture reveals an image of the light source.  Among our group of eclipse watchers was my niece Danielle who's sunhat projected a multitude of mini eclipses on her shoulder. 

Total Eclipse 8/21/2017

    Disclaimer : These photos do no justice to the spectacle created by the Moon blotting out the late morning Sun.

  It started innocently enough as a small notch formed on the upper right edge of the Sun.

   The bite got bigger....

....until our local star showed a fat crescent.

   It progress until only a sliver remained

    After the last ray of sun shined through a deep crater on the Moon's rim creating a diamond ring effect(not pictured), the elusive solar corona appeared.  A close look at the photo below reveals a red promenience at the same position that the moon's transit started.

  A longer exposure shows the star Regulus (circled) to the lower left of the eclipsed Sun.

He had to stay home because he couldn't pass the eclipse safety test.

Mercury Transits the Sun 5/9/2016

    A transit is when an inner planet is observed passing in front of the Sun. Transits of Mercury occur on average 13 times per century.  Today the entire event was visible from much of the Eastern US.

Mercury starts its transit

Composite of the 7 hour event

Close up view of Mercury in line with two sunspot groups, near mid-transit

Prismatic Sun 10/27/2014

Last week despite driving 80 miles to the east, trying to outrun an encroaching cloud-bank, I still missed out on the sunset partial eclipse.  Although the main event was obscured, my practice shots taken the day before yielded evidence of an interesting atmospheric sunset phenomenon. 
  As the sun gets lower in the sky it shines through denser layers of atmosphere.  The thicker atmosphere's refractive properties have a prismatic effect on the Sun, allowing its image to be separated into its component colors.  Meaning the sun's red wavelengths set first and the blue-green set last.  The first image shows the red breaking away at the bottom.

   Later as the solar disk was slipping below the horizon the green wavelengths of light were lingering above the Sun.

  

   Over the past week a massive sunspot complex, the size of Jupiter has been making its way across the face of the Sun.  Today I noticed that the sunspots could be seen through thickening clouds and was able to get some photos with the clouds acting as a solar filter.