Tag: skies

Photography

April Showers

Shelly

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Storm Clouds over Business/SPEA 3 April 2007 3:30pm

Until today, all the good spring storms had happened overnight. This was the view from where I work at about 3:30. There was a ton of lightning, too, but not of the sort you can photograph. It’s still rumbly outside, and I noticed, as I was driving home, that there were washy sections across the road, where there’d been some minor flash flooding. I have to say that it’s very nice to be living in town, away from overhanging trees, and where I don’t have to drive very far to get home from work. My storm anxiety is almost non-existent now, which is very, very cool.

Crankypantsing, Photography

February Sunrise

Shelly

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The one thing I hate about winter is the lack of light. The long nights and grey days really start to bother me after awhile. About this time of year, because I’m up early in the mornings, I start to see the days begin to lengthen. It’s not much, yet, but every little bit helps.

I no longer have a long drive east in the early mornings, which is probably just as well. I miss the sunrises, but with daylight saving time, I wouldn’t have gotten to see them anyway. And, guess what? DST will be starting even earlier this spring! On March 11, I believe. I guess I’ll just add that to the long list of things that I’m cranky about. It could be worse. At least I work on the one floor that has lots of windows.

Crankypantsing, Doodles, Photography

Sunrise and Sunset and a Brand New Year

Shelly

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Sunset, Owen County, Indiana

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Sunrise, Owen County, Indiana

I mentioned that I’d given my mom my SLR? Well, she told me a few weeks ago that I’d left film in the camera, and that there were a couple of pictures on it of either sunrises or sunsets. When I was there over Festivus, I had her dig them out for me. I’m glad I did! The sunset photo is one of best I’ve ever taken. My scanner is in awful shape–it’s making unhealthy grinding noises and is scattering white specks across everything–so this is not the best scan, but it’s not too bad. The frosty winter sunrise photo turned out kind of nicely, too, I think. I don’t remember taking either of them, which shows what sort of Swiss cheese my brain is made of.

Below: This is one my mom took. While I was on the phone with her one evening, she said there were some weird cloud formations. I told her to get the hell outside and take some pictures (duh!), which she did. We’d had the same storm system earlier in the day, complete with mammatus, but my photos didn’t turn out anywhere as well as hers did. (That line along the left is an electric line, and the dark section at the bottom right is the eaves of her house.)

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Mammatus clouds, Muncie, Indiana

And now for a couple of mindless doodles. We’ve had a barrage of staff meetings and training sessions over the past couple of months, in preparation for a major upgrade to our cataloging software. I’m not good with meetings and training sessions. They bore my brain into the danger zone for implodiation. So, I doodle. I don’t care if it makes it seem like I’m not paying attention. I am. I just need to keep my hands busy or my brain will atrophy.

Staff Meeting Doodle
Staff Meeting Doodle

Staff Meeting Doodle
Staff Meeting Doodle

The obligatory New Year resolutions:

I haven’t got a long list of resolutions, because I don’t tend to keep them. However, I’m going to make a concerted effort to try to do some art every day. I’m also going to try to eat more greens and drink less caffeine. Not killing Mr. Upstairs or beating the Bumpuses upside their heads with their dog’s tie-out stake are on the list, too, but alas, they aren’t my first priorities. I may spend 2007 in jail, if my neighbors don’t stop being assberets.

Photography

Evening Belt of Venus and Twilight Wedge Progression

Shelly

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Belt of Venus and Twilight Wedge on Northern Horizon

Joyce mentioned once in comments that one of the photos I’d taken of the Belt of Venus didn’t show the accompanying Twilight Wedge. Since the sky was really clear at sunset, I thought I’d try and get a series of photos of the lengthening Twilight Wedge, to illustrate how it progresses. These photos were taken at three minute intervals. If you look, you can see the faint band of blue along the horizon growing larger with each consecutive photo. Eventually, the Twilight Wedge overshadows the Belt of Venus, joining with the darkening twilight sky above.

The Belt of Venus is the pink to brownish band of light above the horizon, opposite the setting or rising sun. It’s the result of the sunset/sunrise reflecting on the atmosphere, so it’s pinkish in color.

The Twilight Wedge is the blue band below the Belt of Venus. It starts out as a faint purplish tinge along the horizon, and grows larger and larger until it eclipses the Belt of Venus and joins with the darkening twilight sky above. The Twilight Wedge is the shadow of the Earth cast on the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Rising Moon with Belt of Venus and Twilight Wedge on Eastern Horizon

Photography

More Belt of Venus

Shelly

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Two more views of the evening Belt of Venus. The first is looking North, and the second is facing East. The Belt of Venus is the pink band. The color comes from the sunset (or sunrise) opposite reflecting on the Earth’s atmosphere. Below the pink band is the blue band of the twilight arch. That’s the shadow of the Earth cast on the atmosphere.

On a clear evening or morning, if you have an unobstructed view the horizon on all sides, you can see that the pink belt stretches nearly the full 360 degree of the skyline, only fading away as it approaches the setting or rising sun. It is the most distinct, though, at the opposite horizon from the sun.