The Photography thread - with pictures.

[lurch]

An extravagant display of Pileus...Each "ring" was created by the upward push of the heated column of cloud compressing the atmosphere above it. The compression condenses the moisture out of the atmosphere making a cloud..which the column soon pushes thru as it continues rising..

[Sorus]

It's so fluffy!

[Fist and Faith]

lurch, you freakin' rule.

I can see that - possibly peacocks too, but dragons are more interesting. I can picture it as a full-length tapestry, which seems an odd thing to say about glass, but it's beautiful.

Yes, a tapestry is exactly right!

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Hoi, Lurch Cloudmaster. Did I just catch some of those noctilucent clouds we talked about or merely something mundane? Returned home with a late night bus, spotted some promising streaks through the bus windows, and went to grab the camera when I got in. Took the first patch from the edge of a field, but half an hour later (some instinct made me peek out just after teeth-brushing) the light blue tone had intensified and the display had turned very beautiful. I have beheld these before and not specifically pondered about their nature, but now I know to keep an eye out for more. Next weekend I'm off to the scantly lit archipelago, which might provide excellent hunting skies for anything lucent.
These were taken around 2AM.
I doubt I'm going to get much sleep before 1am today either, so might as well recharge the camera battery and go for a night-stroll should the phenomenon return. Too bad the nearest lake's a bit too far off for past-midnight excursions.

Frosty,,Below are 3 pics taken June 23 there in Albkry. To answer your question, yes, mountains, hills and the air currents they cause, have everything to do with the strange clouds. The most common of these different clouds usually spotted around hills and mountains,,is the alto cumulus lenticularis...another way of saying,,a pretty high cloud that is shaped like a bean ( lentil)..They are smooth rather than cotton ball fluffy..and..generally, they are rather stationary,,Think of an ocean wave coming to shore. It rolls in and rises up and crests. Lenticular clouds are the crests of atmosphere rolling thru. The lenticular is formed by the moisture condensing out of the air because it is rising up to a colder temperature area. Cold air holds less moisture, so the cold air creates this cloud that has a lot of ice in it,,hence the smooth, rather than than the fluffy. But the atmosphere keeps moving and very soon the cloud drops to a warmer layer of air and the cloud moisture condenses back into the gaseous state of the atmosphere..So lenticulars condense out of the air and back into the air in a very short space. As long as that space doesn't move, the crest creating cloud making space, then the cloud doesn't move. It just pops out and pops back into the atmosphere in the stationary space. So the first pic is B&W of a few variants. Notice the smooth and the shapes and even the top one is dropping a virga tail( unusual ) and the one on the right is getting curved by the strong wind. So in that area the wind currents a pretty choppy, radical,,from running into the Sandi mountains and being forced to rise up to get over.

The third shot..is just inexplicable. It began as a classic lenticular ( lenny) ,,with the Sandia right there pushing the air up and creating a crest..classic..and then that cube formed up on the one end of it..Very strange,,but thats what mountain currents do and why its fun to keep an eye on the sky above mountains...What is even more interesting..is that whatever created the cube is also somehow related to the lenny above the cube.

Ah, thought so. Thanks for the explanation. Love those pics, the first one has something that looks like a flying alien medusa and another figure with the semblance of a melting dinosaur. The cloud masquerading as a spaceship's great. Saw lennies for the first time in Iceland and thought they were...errrmm...rather cute.

This should be a lenny, right?

That last one is clearly a spaceship.

Soar?

[lorin]

Lurch - Frosty - spectacular pics!

here is one to add the sky collection

[Damelon]

On the way home. Old Man River, at Fort Madison, Iowa.




The long, straight, empty road. South of Belen, NM.



While I was gone, my cat gained a reputation:

[aliantha]

Poor kitty!

[Damelon]

I didn't see her and walked past to my other cat when I went to pick them up. I started hearing this low repeated meowing behind me. In that picture, she's actually happy. I'd just got done rubbing the back of her head. She was ready to go home.

[lurch]

Once again WOW! Noctilucent shots are literally out of this world Frosty. The current belief is..they are formed from meteor smoke particles. They are the highest..some 80km high, on the edge of space. They form during summer best due to moisture levels increasing in the northern latitudes. Moisture plus smoke equals cloud. They normally form and are held to the arctic circle environs. That they are now being seen as far south as London England..may be indications of climate change.. Fantastic shots. If you care to..shots such as these..can be submitted to...Spaceweather.com and Cloud Appreciation Society, and Atmospheric Optics. Sooner or later one of them will appreciate your pics.

And, yes that space ship on the right , is a lenticular cloud. By jove you've got it!

Damelon I hope you take no offense to my grab and drag of your NM shot. I worked it over with Adobe Lightroom and now return it for your consideration. Its your shot so if you want to , drag it to your computor and show it off. Your original may be closer to the "feel" of the wide open expanses of the southwest in the summer, but I thought a more realistic view of it all would give a good idea of the Big Sky of the southwest. My apologies if I have gone too far.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

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Uuuuuu so shiny and pretty. O_O Mom loved those earrings; have you done anything alike with this translucent variant? I keep thinking you might put up an Etsy webstore if you enjoy making them. (So can I order some beads and maybe something for mom? Do the beads have any holes for a cord?)

Once again WOW! Noctilucent shots are literally out of this world Frosty. The current belief is..they are formed from meteor smoke particles. They are the highest..some 80km high, on the edge of space. They form during summer best due to moisture levels increasing in the northern latitudes. Moisture plus smoke equals cloud. They normally form and are held to the arctic circle environs. That they are now being seen as far south as London England..may be indications of climate change.. Fantastic shots. If you care to..shots such as these..can be submitted to...Spaceweather.com and Cloud Appreciation Society, and Atmospheric Optics. Sooner or later one of them will appreciate your pics.

Glad you found them interesting. According to spaceweather.com the Baltic area witnessed a burst of noctilucents that night, and I found a heap of similar shots there. So I did catch some, yay! The following night was cloudy and now we had a massive thunderstorm, so no more cloudgazing till the weekend. Too late for me to skulk outdoors at that hour during workdays.
I'm quite further up compared to London (between 60 and 61 degrees), so albeit not recognizing for what they were before, I've seen various displays and just considered them a "normal" feature of the night sky. But, right, every latitude would have its specialties. First night on danlo's yard I went, "The stars are all wrong! Otava is too high up!"

I'm not sure how well they'd show up past the Arctic Circle at this point...Rovaniemi sports about two hours of mock-twilight, and even down here the sky doesn't become entirely black but retains that orange glow in the north horizon.

[Sorus]

That last one is clearly a spaceship.

Soar?

Soar is lacking in fluffiness, but that ship is cool nonetheless.

While I was gone, my cat gained a reputation:

Aww, that reminds me of the rig I have for Noob Cat, who still doesn't get along with Director Donner. She's doing a good job of keeping me on my toes, because I live in a studio which is really just one room, though I have my 'bedroom' blocked off as her area. Every few days she manages to circumvent my DIY barrier and I have to figure out a way to temporarily outsmart her again.

Great pics, everyone!

[Damelon]

lurch, good job on my picture. I like the look.

[lurch]

Pueblo Sky

[lucimay]

That last one is clearly a spaceship.

my thoughts exactly.

[lorin]

Pueblo Sky

This is spectacular!!!

[lurch]

Thank You lorin !!..It all has to do with how you see. Here is one I call ..

Cloudspotter

[Iolanthe]

It's a seahorse! I saw an arguleh in the clouds the other day but was in a car and couldn't take a picture.

[lorin]

With the Pueblo Sky pic I especially like the contrast of seeing silhouettes of the land. It gives it a very different perspective and a real understanding of the layering of the different cloud formations.

[Sorus]

I'm trying to see the seahorse, but all I'm getting is a corgi dancing with a horse.

[lorin]

Mya aka Helldog remains ever vigilant.

I bought these wicker chairs, shellacked them, bought new cushions and she settled right in. Glad I bought two.