Sky scenes

[tomboysawyer]

My arm hurts from patting myself on the back for starting this thread.  Been awhile since I've just started at the front and looked at every picture.

GREAT STUFF!!!   8)

I'm glad you started it too. Really awesome pictures. I'll give you two responses.

I didn't really want a camera in my cell phone, but I was going to have to wait to get the cell phone I wanted. Now I'm thrilled I got it because I don't always have my camera with me. While the quality of camera phone pictures is DanG sad (if it was another forum, I would have used some other adjectives), some times the texture actually enhances the picture.

Here are three camera phone sky pictures:


Sunrise over Stratton (Vermont) Mountain - yes, while driving.


Heavy snow and moon in my driveway (not driving)


Winter solstice sunrise 2005 on my road (while driving)

I have answered the survey on another thread about using a cell phone while driving. I think the surveyor had meant talking on the cell phone. I'm pretty sure using a cell phone to take pictures while driving is potentially worse than talking (and illegal over bridges near NYC).

[tomboysawyer]

Took this while sailing a 50' sloop in St. Croix. No lenses or filters, just the zoom on the digital camera, a steady hand, and holding my breath.


I have better pictures of this particular sunset, but I liked the sky and my hubby's arm at the helm - Lake Champlain, July 2003.


Our favorite summer pasttime - Hathaway's Drive-In, Hoosick Falls, NY. When the sunsets are awesome, the weather is perfect for a pizza and a six pack and two new movies!

[SwampDonkey]

tomboy, nice pictures. To comment on the drive in theatres, they have been extinct up here for at least 25 years, closer to 30. Used to go to Woodstock (NB), 'The Fort' and Caribou Maine when I was a youngster tagging along. The video cassette recorder killed them here. We never even had a local theatre for at least 25 years, they just build a new one in Woodstock a couple years ago. The nearest ones to me in Maine were closed up last year.

[tomboysawyer]

tomboy, nice pictures. To comment on the drive in theatres, they have been extinct up here for at least 25 years, closer to 30. Used to go to Woodstock (NB), 'The Fort' and Caribou Maine when I was a youngster tagging along. The video cassette recorder killed them here. We never even had a local theatre for at least 25 years, they just build a new one in Woodstock a couple years ago. The nearest ones to me in Maine were closed up last year.

Mosta our drive-ins are gone too. There used to be plenty in town and the surrounding areas. This one's been around for just over 50 years. It's about 15 minles away. It's for sale, but I don't think they're going to close. Ran in to a friend this weekend as we went to a packed Drive-In for Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean, she pointed out they don't go to the movies often. For just three of them $21 would but a movie when it came out on DVD. But with just two of us, $14 for the movie, $7 for a good six pack, and $20 for pizza (with lunch leftovers) is cheaper than a dinner out and way more fun because we got first run movies.

I figure the drive-in is the Red Neck Dinner Theater.

I read somewhere that they are expecting drive-ins to come back. While the number of theaters hasn't increased over the last few years, the number of screens and ticket sales have increased.

[Norm]

A cool foggy morning.

[pappy]

http://www.crownofmaine.com/paulcyr/main.php?g2_page=1

Not just Sky scenes but many many other pics of the area in northern Maine...

Paul Cyr is a very good photographer !!!!  8)  8)  8)

Nice shot Norm!!! Wish I could get up that early in the morn  ;D

enjoy,     
pappy

[Jeff]

I figured I should post these here instead of in the bear hunting thread I have been posting my hunting pictures in.  I just love da U.P. 

Anyone Recognize the tree in the left of the second photo? Pretty hard to mistake the form. There are still quite a few lone big trees standing in some of the Upper peninsula fields.

[SwampDonkey]

I know what the one to the right is. ;D

[Murf]

I finally got some time to download and shrink some pictures for this thread.

First is a nice sunset I caught from the top of the hill just down the road about a week ago.



The other one is a sky shot too, but with a bit of a twist, it's taken from in the sky. I was up near my summer place trying to get some fall colour shots and caught this neat effect of the sun shining through the clouds, showing the rain in silhouette, with the sunset just peeking through in the background.



I got a few nice shots of some fall colours too, but they're not very good this year because it was a little too dry here for most of the summer. I'll see if I can come up with a couple and find a place to post them.

[Tom]

Murf,
You are in a great position to get fantastic photos.  I love to see airials.  You don't have to deal with power lines and trees and people walking in front of the camera.  Sky shots are neat.  So are the pictures of farms, all manicured and clean, new buildings in an urban setting, ships at sea or on the lakes, other planes.   Yep, that's some fun shooting.  Even the edges of cloud banks are something we groundlings seldom get to see.

[Tom]

Jeff sent this to me this evening from his cell phone camera.
You are seeing this UP sky within minutes of it's being taken.

[Furby]

He's got a boat on wheels ???

[SwampDonkey]

Full moon setting this morning at 7:45 am AST.




Moon setting behind Mars Hill this morning as the sun rises over my shoulders and shines on the fall foliage. 7:50 am AST.

[Tom]

That picture speaks.  End of month, end of year, beginning of a new day.


Max

[sawguy21]

Seeing the moon set as the sun rises is incredible. I saw that on a bitterly cold Christmas morning some years ago and didn't have the DanG camera. :'(

[sprucebunny]

Here's a close up of the same moon rising.



And a picture of a "sundog"

[Norm]

Harvest moon a little later in the evening.

[CHARLIE]

Sprucebunny, I've never seen a Sundog that arcs over the sun like that. That's neat. I lived in Minnesota from 1972 through 2004 and now live in western Wisconsin. I've seen a lot of Sundogs because they appear on a crystal clear super cold day when the temps are 10 or more degrees below zero. I've always seen them as two shafts of lights, one on each side of the sun. From what I've been told, it's the sun shining off ice crystals in the air.

[Tom]

I never saw one here.  :D

[CHARLIE]

I was ending up a day working on my grass. We had a drought this year and where the sun burned my lawn grass, lots of crapgrass took over. So I thatched where the crabgrass grew and put down lawn grass seed. I had just put up the equipment when I saw this neat sky scene. It isn't a sunset but more of a dusk picture. The sky had been overcast all day with some light showers. About 5:45 p.m. the sun is peeking from behind dark gray clouds and illuminating a cloudy but clearer sky on the horizon. Solid clouds above me.  What was neat was the sky in the horizon would slowly get brighter and almost glow, then dim, then get brighter again, then dim. It kept doing that and I took the picture as it glowed brightly.


 

[CHARLIE]

Tom, it's imperitive that you experience seeing a Sundog. I'll expect you up here either the end of January or the first week of February. I'll show you a Sundog. I'll let you borrow a coat...........and gloves..........and a stocking hat you can pull down over your ears. ;D

Sprucebunny and Norm, It always amazes me when I see a Harvest Moon. It's kind of Spooky to me. I used to see them on my way home from work. The moon would be rising on ther horizon. It would be a firey orange and HUGE! About 10 times the size of a normal moon. I have no idea what causes it to appear so big when it is rising, but it is always a neat experience.  Of course.....I never had a camera with me when I saw one.  I really enjoyed your pictures.

[Tom]

Charlie,
I have very vivid memories of arriving at the Great Lakes Training Center on the 3rd of February.  I'm not sure that a jacket, gloves and stocking hat would be of much help to me.  Uncle Sam gave me some and might as well have been naked.  As I recall, the glass in the airport terminal in Chicago didn't even provide much help.  I was cold looking at the snow and ice, then they made us get out in it and run for the bus.   Florida boys have a need, but not the experience to run on ice...  on concrete.

The "big" moon, or sun, at the horizon is caused by the atmosphere forming a lense that acts like a magnfying glass.  Once the moon gets high enough that the light rays hit the atmospere more directly and there is less atmosphere, the size shrinks.

I remember Brother Dave saying that "if he were shot to the moon, it would be his luck that it would be a new moon and he'd miss it." ;D

[sprucebunny]

Charlie,
Is it possible that there are two kinds of 'sundog' or that my name for a ring of light around the sun is wrong ??? I agree that it's usually seen in winter and as a warning of snow in the near future but that certainly wasn't true the other day. We've been having beautiful, clear weather. I took the picture 'cause it was unusual to see this time of year.

I've really enjoyed seeing several pictures of the moon here and being able to see the geographic features of the moon in each of them. You can see how it's rotated a little in each one 

[Furby]

My knowledge of sundogs is that it looks like a second sun.
Or otherwise a bright spot off to one side or the other, in some rare cases you can see two at once, usually one on each side of the sun.

Here is what google says:
Link

I don't remember the names for the halo or arch around the sun/moon but they are indeed from ice crystals.
The streaks or rays can be caused by moisture as well as ice. I see them a lot on foggy mornings.

This site is pretty cool and says that sundogs are as you describe Joan.
Link

[Paschale]

About 10 times the size of a normal moon. I have no idea what causes it to appear so big when it is rising, but it is always a neat experience.  Of course.....I never had a camera with me when I saw one.  I really enjoyed your pictures.

I love those harvest moons too!  My dad has a degree in astronomy, and he would always tell us that the size of the moon during those times is really nothing more than an optical illusion, due to it's close proximity to the horizon.  He would always have us close one eye, and then extend our hand all the way, stick our thumb into the air, then place the thumb next to the moon and look at the two with one eye closed.  I've always found it amazing how doing that suddenly makes the moon look normal again. 

Kinda cool!