Part-time prevaricator
There was quite the lightning show from a storm passing through. I set up a tripod in the upstairs bedroom, and it was bright enough, sustained enough, that I was able to check my focus ring just by the light from the storm.
It was especially impressive to realize the heart of the storm actually passed just to the east of us; we caught the very edge of it.
The aurora forecast was great, but the earthly forecast was clouds, clouds, clouds. I ventured out anyway, hoping against hope for a small break in the clouds.
On the back road I chose, there were clouds all around, and lightning—lots of it—to the south and east. I didn’t hear any thunder, but there were moments where the clouds lit up from within. I managed to get one bright bolt in focus.
Looking up, I saw that there was indeed a break in the clouds, just large enough for Jupiter to shine through. If you view the photo full-size, you’ll see two moons as well: Callisto on the left and Ganymede on the right (if I’m using this tool correctly).
Then, before heading home, I decided to take a couple shots of the northern sky. There was a hint of green to it. This is the best photo I managed of the aurora trying to peek through the clouds.
And then I went home.
There was a 3 AM thunderstorm. I decided that, if I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, I might as well set up my camera.
These were the two shots where I captured lightning (out of about 150 frames). This was as the storm was waning.
After this afternoon’s storm had mostly moved on, I set up my camera upstairs. In about 1500 photos, I got one good shot of lightning.
2 second exposure, ISO 100, 24mm, f/22 (as high as my camera would let me go), with a polarizer and a neutral-density filter on the lens.
Here’s a video, too, of about 40 minutes’ worth of storm clouds rolling through, condensed into 44 seconds or so.
Last night, about 11:30 PM, I set up my camera in the spare room upstairs, to try and catch some lightning during the storm.
The header image above is a composite of about 15 frames where I captured lightning bolts. Below are two of the individual frames.
And here’s a video of the whole show (10s frames at 6 frames a second means that one second of video represents one minute of real time).