Stuff in the Sky

[Canuck from Kansas]

Finally had a clear night and found Comet 12P/Pans Brooks.

Always a thrill to see a new comet for the first time !
View attachment 108858


View attachment 108854

Was also actually, to my surprise, able to capture a couple of images, but it is so low one my horizon, about 18 degrees, that it's tough to get a good image.

Sony Alpha 77 at 600 mm, 4 x 30 second exposure



Zenithstar 80, heavily cropped (about 100%) to remove some color casting, unfortunately, not able to bring out the tail but you can see the nucleus, which almost appears as a double nucleus. I could be capturing a fracture, Pons-Brooks is cryovolcanic, meaning it's nucleus fractures due to solar radiation, creating fissures and causing it to spray cryomagma into space (https://www.space.com/devil-comet-hidden-spiral-icy-heart)



Cheers

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

@Canuck from Kansas how did you do with the eclipse?

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

@Canuck from Kansas how did you do with the eclipse?

Not sure, have not processed yet, but I don't think anything very good - don't have an appropriate solar filter and it never got dark enough even with dark filter, so I think everything is/will be over-exposed.

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Was not sure if you were in path of totality. It would be nice to get more practice in with solar eclipses. Years and decades in between is not conducive to staying sharp.
I totally forgot to increase the contrast in camera and use a polarizing filter. Yet, I know it was likely not to help that much. I did luck into the craziness of stacking two polarizing filters on last solar eclipse to create a strong ND/solar filter that actually worked well. But not enough of a view to worry this round.

Please post if you got anything. Day astronomy phase over.

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Did anybody else see the northern lights last night? This is semi-coastal WA. 3 hour show. I had to learn on the fly so was glad it was a long one !

I expected it to be short so I stuck with no tripod for the first 2 hours.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Did anybody else see the north lights last night? This is semi-coastal WA. 3 hour show. I had to learn on the fly so was glad it was a long one !

I expected it to be short so I stuck with no tripod for the first 2 hours.

View attachment 111389

View attachment 111390

View attachment 111393

Beautiful!! Been waaaaay too many years since I have been able to see an aurora. Hopefully moving a bit further north will help, I need to see them again. Thanks for posting.

NOAA Alert: Severe geomagnetic solar storm warning issued

A significant space weather event has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to issue a Geomagnetic Storm Alert.

www.earth.com

Cheers

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Thank you. My best ever event. I have not seen a good aurora show in a super long time and it was always just greens, but I recall some strong storms with superb naked eye viewing. The red was throwing me. Unexpected.

The moon is too strong. I wonder how it would have been in no moon sky..

Spooky to ponder.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Thank you. My best ever event. I have not seen a good aurora show in a super long time and it was always just greens, but I recall some strong storms with superb naked eye viewing. The red was throwing me. Unexpected.

The moon is too strong. I wonder how it would have been in no moon sky..

Spooky to ponder.

Spooky is a good word. When I was on Baffin Island, they were directly overhead, reds, greens, blues, sliding across the sky. Like many, I swear I could hear them, sort of hissing. Spooky is a very good word

 

[RRSmith]

This subject matter is limited within the troposphere ha ha. I just returned from working Tour 1 for Tempest Tours - we started in Oklahoma City and drove about 3500 miles from the Rio Grande to I-70 in Kansas for the 8 day tour. The weather pattern was overall crummy except at the end when it went bonkers. We found this low precipitation supercell near Tribune, Kansas on April 25th. I love the structure of these storms and you can really see the rotation in this brief time lapse I did with my iPhone.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

This subject matter is limited within the troposphere ha ha. I just returned from working Tour 1 for Tempest Tours - we started in Oklahoma City and drove about 3500 miles from the Rio Grande to I-70 in Kansas for the 8 day tour. The weather pattern was overall crummy except at the end when it went bonkers. We found this low precipitation supercell near Tribune, Kansas on April 25th. I love the structure of these storms and you can really see the rotation in this brief time lapse I did with my iPhone.



View attachment 112400

The skies are one of the things we really miss about the farm in Kansas, they could be soooo menacing, but sooo fascinating. Not sure we miss time in the bunker we had off the basement, an old water cistern, when the sirens went off, but do miss the skies.

Reason for edit: Had to fix "festinating", cause I have no idea what that means

Cheers

 

[RRSmith]

The skies are one of the things we really miss about the farm in Kansas, they could be soooo menacing, but sooo fascinating. Not sure we miss time in the bunker we had off the basement, an old water cistern, when the sirens went off, but do miss the skies.

Reason for edit: Had to fix "festinating", cause I have no idea what that means

Cheers

Our youngest daughter attended college for two years in Salina - it was always terrifying to us when she had to go into the basement during tornado warnings.

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Possible BIG Aurora Borealis event on Friday night/ past midnight Saturday? Oh yeah..but don't want to jinx it..

 

[Brian Miller]

Possible BIG Aurora Borealis event on Friday night/ past midnight Saturday? Oh yeah..but don't want to jinx it..

View attachment 113585

Received this today from my HF ECOMM organization leader
"For widest distribution

SWPC ISSUES ITS FIRST G4 WATCH SINCE 2005
Further information concerning this event is available at the following link:
SWPC Issues Its First G4 Watch Since 2005 | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
G4 (Severe) Geomagnetic Storm Impacts
Power systems: Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.
Spacecraft operations: May experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.
Other systems: Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, *HF radio propagation sporadic*, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.)."

*The regional HF ECOMM net propagation was real poor today, lots of atypical "relays" needed*

 

[Wadin' Boot]

Watch your pacemakers, that solar storm might bit flip some folks!

 

[Kilchis]

Aurora tip. Use your phone or camera and take some pix even if you can't really see anything. We are in Salem, 9 miles south of the 45th parallel. Went outside, saw nothing but an almost invisible pink blush, decided it wasn't really there. Friend sent a photo he took with his iPhone, it was full color. My wife used her iPhone 15 and got some really nice shots. My ipad and old Kyocera phone saw nothing. My old Canon saw this about 11:15 tonite. Handheld, long exposure, so crummy shot.

 

[Zak]

Aurora tip. Use your phone or camera and take some pix even if you can't really see anything. We are in Salem, 9 miles south of the 45th parallel. Went outside, saw nothing but an almost invisible pink blush, decided it wasn't really there. Friend sent a photo he took with his iPhone, it was full color. My wife used her iPhone 15 and got some really nice shots. My ipad and old Kyocera phone saw nothing. My old Canon saw this about 11:15 tonite. Handheld, long exposure, so crummy shot.

View attachment 113800

The night sight feature on cell phone cameras makes the aurora pop better than the eye. Here's a couple from tonight!

 

[BriGuy]

The Aurora Borealis was quite visible near the Olympia airport last night. Quite spectacular. I wish there was less light pollution around, though.

Here's a grainy picture from my old, crappy phone:

 

[MELinOre]

A couple I got from our house in beautiful downtown FuhLowMuth.

 

[riseform]

Got stuck in Tacoma given on call responsibilities, while my wife and friends drove up to Canada with amazing views.
Not bad from my deck given the light pollution in Tacoma. Narrows bridges and hint of Olympics visible looking north and west. Moon was actually a sliver, blown out given a six second exposure. First time I've ever seen northern lights.