Venus, Jupiter and Mars in the Morning 10/25/15

Prominent Jupiter and Venus with dimmer Mars

Mars, Jupiter and Venus at higher magnification

Mercury

Jupiter and Venus 9:45 AM

Mars, Jupiter and Venus 10/19/2015

   The early morning planets presented another photo op this morning.

Venus, Jupiter and Mars

Cropped photo shows Jupiter's moon Ganymede and star Chi Leo

  Hours earlier as seen from Japan, Mars occulted the 4.5 magnitude star Chi Leo.  Below is a link posted on spaceweather dot com that shows the occultation.
GIF of Mars Occulting Chi Leo

Moon and Planets October 10 and 11, 2015

  A photogenic grouping of four naked eye planets plus the last days of an old crescent moon greeted early risers or (as in my case) those pulling an all-nighter, on the past Saturday and Sunday mornings.

  In the first photo brilliant Venus is to the uppermost right side.  Above the Moon are Jupiter and dimmer Mars to its upper right.  Mercury, to the lower left of the Moon is difficult to see in the first photo shows up a little better in the cropped second photo.

  The next morning the moon slipped down a little lower and serves as a guide to the elusive innermost planet Mercury. 

  A bigger lens isolates the pair and makes them much easier to see.

Flight Radar

  Ever see a high altitude jet fly over and wonder where it started or where it is going.  Flightradar24.com  can give you those answers.  The other day I photographed this red-bellied Airbus 330 that flew over my house.  I had my computer handy and found that it took off from Chicago's O'Hare and was heading to Berlin.

A few minutes later an O'Hare to London Heathrow flight was ID'd by Flightradar24.com,

Queen Ant Day 9/18/2015

  Every year ant colonies in an instinctual effort to pass on their genes, raise extra queens and drones(male ants) that set out to start their own colonies.  Typically in late summer all the colonies in a particular area will release the queens on the same day.  The day of flying ants, deemed 'Queen Ant Day' by my brother Rob when we were kids, is not so much dependent strictly on the calendar, weather conditions also play a big part .   

   Yesterday afternoon I noticed a Common Nighthawk working the sky over my house.  When I put the binoculars on it I noticed several flying ants in the field of view.  A quick check of the ant colonies by my driveway, revealed the Queen Ant Day festivities were in full swing.  Below are photos of the event. 

Activity around the nest

Drones and workers

Queen and drones

  Here is an attempt at video.

Persied Meteor Shower 8/13/15

  Tried to photograph the Persied Meteor shower last night. Only caught three before the high clouds wiped out the contrast of the night sky. 

  Below is a timelapse video put together from the 1500 photos that I took. 

Save the Drammatus for your Mammatus

   Last evening a line of intense thunderstorms accompanied by high winds (and even a tornado in Huron County) rolled across Michigan toppling trees and  knocking out power to tens of thousands.  I was awoken from my pre-work nap by my alarm clock as I had slept through the whole storm. 

   Per our evening ritual, I took the dog out to empty his accumulated liquids and solids before he turned in for the night.  When we headed back toward the house, I looked up and saw that mammatus clouds had formed in the wake of the storms. 

   Mammatus aka mammatocumulus (or mammary clouds) are named for their sac-like structures that are said to resemble a cow's utter or human equivalent (Full disclosure - having been strictly bottle-fed as an infant I can only confirm the bovine reference).

. Most clouds form when warm humid air rises and condenses in cooler air.  These clouds on the other hand, develop when cool moist air containing  large drops or even ice crystals descends into drier air. The mammatus phenomena can be a long lasting feature, as it may take a while for the large drops to evaporate.   The common misconception that I had heard growing up, was that they are associated with tornadic activity.  But only times I have seen them were after a severe storm had passed and the dry zone into which they formed had sucked the energy out of the atmosphere.      

Taken from my driveway

   Sensing a rare photo opportunity I grabbed my camera and headed toward the lake shore in the waning dusk.