Solar Halo and Really Big Moon

People I'm so happy. While organizing my more then 23,000 images I've taken over the last 14 months I came across a folder called "Future Posts" and found some images I'd thought I had lost.

The image above is a Solar Halo I took last May on my trip to visit my daughter and boyfriend in Winfield, near Kelowna. What is remarkable about this Solar Halo is that it was taken when it was +25c, very rare. Didn't last all that long, in fact you can see the clouds roll in to dissolve it.



Now just the other day I went out to capture a daytime Moon Set. The sky was full of ice crystals usually if you can image the Moon set low on the horizon when the atmosphere is full of ice crystals it looks unusually large, didn't disappoint. the Moon looked huge, very cool, snapped an image before it ducked below the lower clouds.



This coming February 22nd, there is going to be a beautiful conjunction to look forward to. Just before Sunrise look to the East, South East around 8:00 am CST. for a super duper gathering of the slim crescent Moon, then Mercury, then Jupiter, then Mars. Will be really pretty and rare, perfect photo op. Around 7:20 am CST, you'll see the Moon rise, then below and to the left Mercury will rise, then Jupiter, finally Mars, good luck with the viewing and imaging.

Going through my images I decided to put together a compilation of some of my "thought I'd lost images" with some older favorites. Most of them taken with my Canon 40D, some with my microscope and others like some of the Moon shots taken with my camera attached to my scopes. I have all of you to thank for these images, if I wouldn't have gotten so much encouragement from you readers I probably wouldn't have taken so much in such a little time, if you would have come back in the comments and said things like " Your images suck, this blog sucks, oh and you suck", I probably wouldn't have stood out in the -40c weather to take as many as I did. The video shows as well a never before seen on this blog a cross polarized Asteroid Vesta meteorite as well as one of my favorite Lunar DAG 400 meteorites, it looks cool, gray and cratered , much like the Lunar surface itself, hope you enjoy.

Double Solar Halo And Circumzenithal, Upper Tangent Arcs

The right place at the right time with the right equipment is the only reason I was lucky enough to capture the image above. I was in my car yesterday with my trusty camera by my side when I noticed a Solar halo forming, pulled over to the side of the road,  got out and was starting to take the picture of the halo.  As I was imaging the Solar Halo, image below, with an Upper Tangent Arc, a Second halo with a Circumzenithal Arc started to form before my very eyes, zoomed out to get the whole picture in the same frame, what a sight!!! I had decided to start carrying my camera equipped with a fisheye lens around with me 24/7 just in case something like the above were to happen, and it did.





Circumzenithal Arc, aka "A Smile in the Sky" the most beautiful of all the ice halos, sits on top the 46 degree halo/arcs. Formed by the Sunlight refracting off horizontally orientated ice crystals in the high wispy Cirrus clouds. They go unnoticed a lot of the time simply because they hang high around the Zenith, plus again, they come and go real fast, the one I imaged above lasted 10 minutes tops.


Saskatoon in the winter, this -25c weather is good for something. As I was heading for work in the morning, I noticed the lights from the city reflecting off some low clouds and a Lunar Halo, made for a pretty picture, so having my 24/7 camera with me I took the pic. I liken the Solar/Lunar Halos in the winter to the Milky Way in the Summer, both the best all encompassing celestial sky shows going.

I'll leave you now with an animation of my Double Halo.

Another Moon, Jupiter ,Venus Conjunction Image And The Moon, Pleiades Meet

It's like when your Uncle Fred from out of town comes in to town a week after Christmas with your Christmas present, for just a little while it's Christmas again. That's how I felt when Daniel sent me the above Lunar, Venus, Jupiter conjunction image, very cool, keep the feeling alive.

Great image Daniel!! A pair of Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D glasses are on their way out to you.



While we are on the topic of conjunctions, like when aren't we, there was a Lunar, Pleiades one last night. Totally cloudy here so I didn't think I would be able to see it. The cat was barking for a bedtime snack around 9:30pm like she always does, so I headed to her food dish, and happened to look out the basement window and low and behold I noticed a break in the clouds, got me all excited, got my stuff together and went outside to watch and get the above and below images. Both images were blended in Photoshop, the Pleiades at 2 sec exposure, the Moon at 1/800 sec exposure. The clearing only lasted a few minutes so I didn't get the Moon in occultation with the Pleiades, that is when it covers some of the Pleiade's stars, which happened quite a few hours later behind the stupid clouds, but I was still able to view and image them together, still pretty.



If you are looking for another pretty view, check out the Full Moon rise this Friday evening, this Full Moon is special. The Moon does an elliptical orbit around us and it will be in it's perigee stage, closest to us, the year's biggest Moon, 14% bigger then when it is apogee, furthest from us. But here is the kicker, it will be 30% brighter, which sucks if you're going to be watching for meteors during the Geminid shower this weekend.



Thought I would post a cool animation of a Coronal Mass Ejection, (CME), that occurred December 8, a few days ago, it was huge, look at it, looks to be around 100 Earth diameters. Apparently it blasted out towards Saturn, looks like our Sun is starting to get a little more active.

Halo watch, with the arrival of colder temperatures be on the look out for Solar and Lunar halos. When ever you get a combination of cold temps and the high, thin, wispy cirrus clouds you may be lucky to catch halos and dogs. I'll leave you now with an animation of a Solar halo I took a couple days ago, they come and go very fast, this one broke up due to lack of cirrus clouds after only 15 minutes.

Solar Halo and Blue Moon

Solar Halo February 19 11:45 am

The day before E day (eclipse), I was outside and happened to notice a huge Solar halo starting to form, got my camera and headed just outside of town to capture the above halo, within 30 minutes it had formed a complete circle around the sun and had developed some beautiful colors. Just as fast as it had formed it disappeared as the Cirrus clouds broke apart, and it was no more, you can see it posted at Sky and Telescope website as well as one of my other halos. Solar halos are the result of the Sunlight being reflected and refracted off ice crystals high in the Cirrus clouds, wispy clouds located above 23,000 feet.

Blue Eclipsed Moon February 20, 2008




I just had to post one more image of the Total Lunar eclipse. I didn't post this image initially because it looked gray and colorless except for some blues , which I thought was just wrong, very little reds, I actually thought, great I broke my camera because of the cold weather and the taking it in and out of the house and the fact it was actually starting to make strange noises, but upon further investigation I found out the blue/ greens are a result of the Sunlight passing through the ozone layer which scatters or blocks the reds of the Sun's light, making the light getting through to the Lunar surface bluer. There was only a couple out of the many shots I took that had this much blue in it, makes for a very cool and different eclipse. I did have to put it through Photo shop curves and brightness and contrasted it to bring the browns and blues out more.

Mercury, Venus, Jupiter February 23, 2008

There is another conjunction happening right now, Mercury and Venus are getting very close together and will be their closest February 27th. Look to the South East just before the Sun rises to see Mercury and Venus close together and Jupiter further South. I took the above image of the trio this morning around 7:14 am cst.

Don't know if you have seen this video on You Tube, it is supposed to be the actual shooting down of the US Spy Satellite, pretty cool video.

I'll leave you now with my Solar halo on reflecting water.