This image appeared on the Optics Picture of the Day (OPOD) website with an explanation of the event provided my Les Cowley. Special thanks to those on the NCAS, LAS, FRAC, and Astrolandscape list servs and Tonk, who have tried to identify the phenomena in this image. At this point the most likely explanation for the green lights are gravity waves in airglow, or oxygen atoms which had been excited by UV daytime light now returning to their ground state. On top of being a rare phenomena there is also a really good story behind this image. I had went out to Keota that evening to start collecting data for a solstice image I had planned. Once I got to the "dark" site, I collected the data I needed and in one of my last shots, caught part of these green lines stretching out. Since digital film is cheap I went around the area and captured all the information you see in this image, then packed up and started to head to my next photo shoot location. No more than .1 miles on this old dirt road which would lead me back to the interstate and my vehicle comes across mud - and lots of it. Now to set the story straight, it had not rained for days. The part of the road that I used to get to the dark site was a great dirt road; solid dirt, no sign of trouble. But alas, I get stuck in the mud. After spending an hour stuck in the mud, trying to dig myself out (by hand) I finally give up. At this point by vehicle is coated in mud as am I. While this may have seen like a bad situation to being with, you need to couple it with the fact that my cell phone does not receive reception. Thankfully, I had OnStar and thankfully OnStar works even in places with no cell service. As soon as I heard the voice of the people at OnStar I thought everything was good - I mean they knew I was stuck, they have my GPS location. They tell me they are sending a tow truck out so life should be good. Two hours later after not hearing anything from them or seeing a truck, I call them back. Apparently even with GPS coordinates they cannot find me, so they just gave up looking! After another conversation with them which involved me giving the directions "Go down CO 103. You will reach a T-intersection with CO 96 where the road will turn left. At that point turn right - hop the ditch - and drive for 1/2 mile down a dirt road that you can barely see which is covered on both sides by cactuses." By now three hours had passed since I got stuck, but I see the tow truck. The lights on the truck were starting to get brighter and brighter as it moved towards me. Brighter, brighter, the same, the same. All of a sudden the truck stopped getting closer. It was stuck in the mud! After an hour and a half of trying to access the situation, the tow truck operator had enough chain to pull me out from where the tow truck was stuck at. After I got out, I drove to the other side of the tow truck and used my vehicle as an anchor point for the tow truck to get unstuck. Life was good. We were both unstuck and even though we were still on this dirt road, we were on the piece that the tow truck had to drive down to get to me in the first place. So I start driving down this road. I don't get more than .2 miles before once again I somehow get stuck in the mud. So the tow truck leapfrogs around me and pulls me out once again - only to get stuck in the mud himself (again). So I leap frog around his truck again. Use my vehicle as an anchor point again and continue down the road again. Finally, it is seven in the morning when we make it back to the Country Road which leads to the interstate. Seven hours after I got stuck in the mud, I am finally free (though still covered in mud) and get to start the hour drive back home. The definitely makes one of my most exciting astro-imaging adventures so far. Location: South of Keota, CO Date: 2011-06-20 Camera: Canon XSi (modified) Lens: Sigma 20mm f/1.8 Mount: Astrotrac Details: 16x30 seconds f/1.8 ISO 1600 Processing: Photoshop CS5, Topaz DeNoise 5
A very special thank you to Melissa S. who braved the freezing, rapid waterfall in order to pose on a rock in the middle of the night. Also, a special thank you to Liz L-H who provided technical support (lugging equipment up the side of a mountain) and also providing safety when dealing with the waterfall. Location: Rocky Mountain National Park, CO Date: 2011-06-13 and 2011-06-14 Camera: Canon XSi (modified) Lens: Sigma 20mm f/1.8 Mount: Still Tripod, Astrotrac Landscape: 14x4 seconds f/2.8 ISO 400 (Mosaic) Model: 1x4 seconds f/2.8 ISO 400 (Included in Mosaic) Sky: 1x5 minutes f/4 ISO 800 Processing: Photoshop CS5, Topaz DeNoise 5
Featured on NASA's APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) June 6th, 2011. Imagine if you will, a sphere that has been cut in half. You are now standing in the center of the cut side. As you look out you see a pyramid lying on the ground, concentric circles in mid-air and an arch on the inside of a sphere. What a sight to see! So to capture this exquisite view you take a cylindrical camera lens and take images as you rotate the camera all around the inside of the sphere. Then take the two dimensional cylindrical images and turn them into rectangles, attach them to each other and you get the image above - a Geometer's Playground! The Ames Monument, located near Buford, WY, is a tribute to Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, Jr., Union Pacific Railroad financiers. Once the railroad was complete this monument was built to honor the brothers. At the time, it marked the highest point on the transcontinental railroad at 8247ft (2514m), however years later the railroad tracks were relocated further south. Nowadays, this monument stands alone, several miles from the interstate and several miles from any other structure. On July 24th, 1972 the Ames Monument was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. There are many fun astronomical happenings in this mosaic. Moving from left (West) to right (clockwise) we see the moon setting. Covered by light clouds in different parts of the atmosphere makes light from the moon reflect and diffract causing a spectacular lunar halo and lunar corona. As we begin to look to the north-east we see the Milky Way, our own galaxy, start to rise and arch over the Ames Monument. Directly to the right of the pyramid near the horizon are lights from the city of Cheyenne. This is my most technical nightscape to date and it falls in the newly created category of "Time-Lapse High Dynamic Range Mosaic". Normally, taking the frames to be used in an image is the easy part, compared to processing. However with so many things going on in this image, capturing the data in this case was quite difficult. I started when the moon was as you see it, several degrees above the horizon. I quickly captured the lunar halo, followed by the lunar corona, then with a fisheye lens I recorded the landscape in eight pieces. Soon after that was complete and the moon had set, I did another pass of eight frames to record the background sky, including the Milky Way. However a quick one minute image did not record enough detail of the Milky Way so using the Astrotrac and a 20mm rectilinear lens, I captured the Milky Way in six pieces. A few hours on the computer afterwards and the final product is what you see above a full 360x172 degree view. Location: Ames Memorial Pyramid, Near Laramie, Wyoming Date: 2011-05-10 Camera: Canon XSi (modified) Lens: Sigma 10mm f/2.8 Fisheye, Sigma 20mm f/1.8, Canon 50mm f/1.4 Mount: Still Tripod, Astrotrac Landscape: 8x60 seconds 10mm f/2.8 ISO 1600 (Mosaic) (Still) Background Sky: 8x60 seconds 10mm f/2.8 ISO 1600 (Mosaic) (Still) Milky Way: 6x600 seconds 20mm f/4 ISO 800 (Mosaic) (Astrotrac) Lunar Halo: 1x2 seconds 10mm f/2.8 ISO 200 (Still) Lunar Corona: 1x4 seconds 1x0.6 seconds 1x1/3200th seconds 50mm f/4 ISO 400 (Still) Processing: PTGUI Pro, Photoshop CS5, Topaz DeNoise 5
