K-Squared Ramblings

Halo Triplet

While walking to lunch today, I spied a fragment of halo above the sun. (Whenever I notice a really thin layer of cirrus clouds, I always try to find an opportunity to block the sun and look for halos.) I tried to get a couple of shots with my phone, and figured I’d try enhancing them when I got home.

What surprised me is that the halo was not only still there after lunch, but clearer. On the way back, I stopped in several places with a building, or a sign, or a tree blocking the sun. The curve seemed too shallow to be a standard circular halo, so I wondered what I was actually seeing. Then I realized there was a faint halo inside the brighter curve, the two fragments meeting above the sun and splitting like diverging roads.

Then I noticed the sundog.

Three distinct sun halos. Not complete, and far from the clearest display I’ve seen, but certainly the most complex.

The brightest part appears to be the top of a circumscribed halo, which varies in shape from oval to kidney-bean depending on how high the sun is. You can just see the 22° circular halo branching off below it. Off to the right is a sundog.

It’s too bad I only had the phone, but it did manage to catch all three halos. I fiddled with the contrast a little to make them clearer, but they are visible without it.

And to think I saw this from the middle of suburban Southern California!

Partly Cloudy, Late Afternoon

Partly Cloudy, Late Afternoon, originally uploaded by Kelson.

A better copy of the photo I posted to Twitpic earlier today.

Sundog

Sundog, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Friday was a good day for atmospheric optics. I watched a sundog for most of my drive home.

Reach for the Sky

Spotted in Old Town San Diego.

Halo and Shadow: Cloud Optics Two-Fer

Tree Halo, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Yesterday morning while driving to work, I looked up from the road and saw two parallel lines in the sky: One white, one dark blue. They were, of course, a contrail and its shadow on a thin cloud layer below. Because it was a thin layer, I started looking (when I had the chance) for fragments of halos.

When I finally stopped the car, I took a picture of the contrail and its shadow (now nearly aligned with the sun), looked up and saw a faint edge of a halo. I moved a bit to the left, putting a tree in front of the sun, and there it was: a clear 22-degree circular halo centered on the sun..

Line Items: Night Sky

• Coastal Calif photos: Seeing how long it’ll take to upload to Flickr over hotel connection. #
• Oh, I really like this version of iPhoto better than the one that came with the last laptop! #
• There’s something to be said for a night sky with so many stars that Sirius doesn’t stand out quite so much. #

No Comet For You!

Orion, Sirius, and Airplane, originally uploaded by Kelson.

I had hoped that the darker skies near San Simeon on the central California coast would have made it easier to spot Comet Lulin, but no such luck. First the clouds rolled in around sunset. I checked around 9:45 and they’d cleared enough to see very clearly out toward the ocean, but the lights of town were directly below Leo, so I drove down the highway a few miles to a scenic viewpoint with a wide parking area, stopped the car, and tried not to let passing traffic ruin my dark adaptation.

Once again, no luck spotting the comet (though I’ve at least determined that the bright spot next to Saturn was just a star), but an excellent view of the stars. And I spotted 4 or 5 meteors during the ~30 minutes I was out there, all in the direction of Orion and Canis Major. (One of them, maddeningly, flashed by just moments before one of my photos started.)

I did manage to catch an airplane as it transited in front of Canis Major and Orion, shown in this photo. (I should have called it a UFO.) And the view was far better than any night sky in suburbia, so the side trip was absolutely worth it!

Moon and Venus Above Palms

Moon and Venus Above Palms, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Yellow Clouds at Sunset & Herringbone Moon

Yellow Clouds at Sunset, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Last Thursday evening, this was the view from one of the office windows.

Herringbone Moon, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Later that night, I took this photo. Or rather, these photos, since it’s a composite of two, one which picked up the herringbone pattern of the clouds and one which picked up the moon and the corona surrounding it.

Stellar Triangle

I managed to get a few shots of the near-conjunction of the crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus tonight before they sank into the haze.

The first two shots were taken at twilight (well, dusk, really), around 5:05–5:10 PM PST, while the third was taken at 5:30, after night had fallen.

Halo & Sundog

While driving toward the sun a little after 1:00 this afternoon, I noticed a faint reddish, slightly upturned patch in the sky ahead of me, and realized it was probably the bottom edge of a 22° sun halo. I was surprised, since the cloud cover looked too heavy for it, but it was there. At the next intersection, I looked out the side window to see if I could catch anything above the sun, and there was a clear arc running left of the sun, from a little below sun level to as high as I could see.

We stopped the car, found a tree to block the sun, and both looked. There was so much glare it was easier to see with sunglasses on, so I lent mine to Katie so she could catch it. Finally I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures, most of them using a gate post instead of the tree.

We ran some more errands, and I caught up with her at the grocery store. On my way from the car, I looked up and saw a perfect bright sundog to the right of the sun, much brighter than the clouds around it and showing the full red-to-blue spectrum. I should have gone back to the car for the better camera, but I used my phone camera instead, and got this shot.

I got to the edge of the lot just as Katie was leaving, and immediately said something like, “Look! Right above that palm tree!” Then I took off my sunglasses, realized that it was completely washed out without them (though it seems to have come out all right on my cheesy phone camera), and handed them over again. It continued to be visible, though less well-defined (it was a lot sharper than this photo shows) for at least half an hour.

A circle around the sun, and a bright rainbow-colored spot in the sky. I wonder how many people walking around never even noticed.

Jupiter and Venus

This is actually from a couple of nights ago, but the view as I left the office tonight was about the same (though the lights were just starting to turn on in this picture).

It’s really odd to walk out of the building into a lot that’s normally lighted (even when I head in to do emergency server maintenance at midnight) and see it completely dark.

Well, not completely dark. There was a little light leaking from windows behind me, and streetlights filtering through trees, and what I could see of the sign on the building across the street. Nothing compared to some of the camping trips I’ve been on, or the drive through Ka‘u at night. But for a suburban office building, it was a change.

Edit: Oops! For some reason I’ve been convinced that this was Saturn, but it’s actually Jupiter.

Smoke Plume Above Trees

Smoke Plume Above Trees, originally uploaded by Kelson.

Smoke from various fires up near Los Angeles and Corona, creeping across the sky into Orange County.

Orange Clouds (no rain)

Orange Clouds (no rain), originally uploaded by Kelson.

The sunset view as I left the office this evening. The clouds turned even deeper orange over the drive home, with streamers of pink running halfway across the sky.

Ragged Clouds at Sunrise

Ragged Clouds at Sunrise, originally uploaded by Kelson.

View from our back yard this morning. I had to tweak the colors a bit to approximate what it looked like to the naked eye. It’s still not quite right — there was a bit more pink in it, and maybe a bit less purple.

Sometimes it’s worth getting up at this hour.