tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81593188975981666882024-02-06T19:33:51.417-08:00Leaf litterSpace and Earth science, nature, photography, travel, and things more or less relatedmusubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.comBlogger129125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-66293200724436656462015-06-18T01:31:00.001-07:002015-06-18T01:31:29.316-07:00Galbraith Lake - Brooks Range<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/18342118411" title="Road to Sukakpak by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Road to Sukakpak" height="512" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8867/18342118411_305b448160_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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Two weeks ago I took a weekend trip up to Galbraith Lake, on the northern edge of the Brooks Range. This is a really beautiful spot with lots of mountains and endless open tundra. No trails, just pick a direction and walk. I drove up at a time when the last few miles of the Dalton Highway into Deadhorse were closed due to washouts, which meant no truck traffic. Trucks to the oil fields are like 95% of the traffic up here, so it was just hundreds of miles of empty road through empty arctic wilderness. Perfect. My friends and I left Fairbanks on Friday night and drove up to the Arctic Circle wayside to stay at the campsite, then went the rest of the way to Galbraith Lake on Saturday morning. Spent Saturday evening hiking in the hills to the west, then camped by the cars at the Galbraith Lake campsite before driving back to Fairbanks Sunday.<br />
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We did spot a moose with two calves in the middle of the road, about 4 miles north of the Yukon River. The calves were too slow or dumb to get out of the way and the cow was on the verge of charging my car to keep us away.<br />
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On the way north the next day we stopped at one of my favorite viewpoints, Sukakpak Mountain. It's a spectacular mountain, and I have this... spot where I've been trying to take shots of the mountain from the same spot with the same lens but in different conditions. So we stopped and I took some 'sunny, summery' photos:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/18889955556" title="Mt Sukakpak by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Mt Sukakpak" height="534" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/397/18889955556_e1051e973c_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Some past shots with the same perspective and lens:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14031658237" title="Sukakpak Mountain by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Sukakpak Mountain" height="450" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2926/14031658237_d17de95e71_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/10607454813" title="Sukakpak Mountain by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Sukakpak Mountain" height="450" src="http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7428/10607454813_d41712221d_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br /><br />It was beautiful weather the whole way until we got over Atigun Pass into the Arctic Ocean drainage, where it was heavy overcast and windy. Most of the group went up the nearest highpoint but myself and one other stayed down in the pass and walked deeper into the mountains. Along the way I found quite a few old caribou bones:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/18377761761" title="Caribou skull and tundra flowers by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Caribou skull and tundra flowers" height="450" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/420/18377761761_42ba1091d4_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The overcast skies brought rapidly changing weather. People in the group who woke up at various times in the morning to step outside the tent and pee, and their reports indicate that in two hours time it went from calm and warm to horizontally blowing sleet you could hardly see through, and back to calm but cold. As soon as we were south of Atigun Pass it was a beautiful day again. We stopped again at Sukakpak, this time on the north side of the mountain. The mountain is less impressive from here but there is a nice lake and another mountain that isn't named on the USGS maps. We saw a moose and calf here but I didn't try to shoot it, instead playing with my wide angle tilt/shift to shoot the unnamed (?) mountain and lake:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/17718196834" title="Lake and mountain by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Lake and mountain" height="534" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/492/17718196834_f4e50e0c70_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Also, I got my 4x5 view camera out and shot a few pieces of film. Here's the group (minus me) at the sign for the Arctic Circle wayside, posing as if they're an old wilderness road construction crew:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/18625636805" title="Crew by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Crew" height="640" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8840/18625636805_1c23efeb93_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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And here's a couple with the lake and the backside of Sukakpak Mountain:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/18599455526" title="Smile by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Smile" height="640" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8852/18599455526_eaa09ca92e_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/18439830099" title="Yay! by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Yay!" height="640" src="http://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8860/18439830099_6ede6053ae_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The end of a great trip, and with the lack of truck traffic it was probably the best Dalton Highway driving experience one could hope for.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-10288426362512042142015-02-02T22:44:00.000-08:002015-02-02T22:44:12.125-08:00ExposureIf you want to take photos in anything other than auto/preset modes, you have to understand how to set an exposure. Otherwise you're stuck asking people about 'settings' all the time - which seems to be the approach a lot of people actually take. Stop doing that because you're making this way harder than you need to. If you just ask for settings and I say 'ISO 200, f/8, 1/1000' that doesn't mean anything to you other than 'derp I'll just twist knobs until I get those numbers to show up on my camera'. You need to understand what those things <i>do</i>, then it's really easy to figure out the 'right settings' for any random photo you want to take.<br />
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Your camera has three knobs, and turning any of those knobs up will make the photo brighter while turning them down will make the photo dimmer. The difference is knob one decreases the in-focus area while it makes the image brighter, knob two makes moving things blur or streak while it makes the image brighter, and knob three makes more noise and less dynamic range while making the image brighter.<br />
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Knob one is your aperture, knob two is your shutter speed, and knob three is the ISO. Depending on your camera they might literally be knobs or they might be menu selections, but they always do the same thing.<br />
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So here you are, you want to take a photo but you don't know what the settings should be. Assuming this isn't a film camera, just take a photo with any random settings and see what you get. Too dark? Turn one of the knobs up. Still dark? Turn it (or a different knob) up more. Keep doing this until you produce a well exposed image. Image too light? Turn a knob down instead.<br />
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A shortcut is to take the first photo in some kind of auto or semi-auto mode then copy the settings into manual mode, this will put you 'in the ballpark'. I like aperture mode for this.<br />
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Now that you have a well exposed image, what are the settings? The real question is why should you care? They're just numbers on the screen.<br />
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But how do you know <i>which</i> of the three knobs to turn? That just depends on whether you'd rather change the in-focus area, change the amount of blurring on moving objects, or change the amount of noise. As an example, for a typical daytime landscape I probably want a lot of depth-of-field so I want to leave the aperture around f/8 or f/11. I want low noise (and lots of dynamic range) so I want the ISO around ISO 100. But mountains don't move around much so I can flip the shutter speed all over the place without really worrying about getting blur from moving objects.<br />
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That's the whole process - you know what side effect each of the three knobs will have on your photo, decide which side effect is the least important, and just flip that knob until the image looks good.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-80375491784553826232014-11-22T20:06:00.001-08:002014-11-22T20:06:24.495-08:00Svalbard / C-REX part 1<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15581063370" title="Sunset over the Arctic Ocean by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Sunset over the Arctic Ocean" height="684" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3945/15581063370_9fd5d17ac9_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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Well hello folks. I'm writing from Longyearbyen, Svalbard:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15767419262" title="I am in a neat place by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="I am in a neat place" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3939/15767419262_fb2e7c661b_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The sign out the front door of the airport is interesting - 'You're a long way from everywhere, and try not to get eaten by a polar bear':<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15784152581" title="Signs by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Signs" height="534" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7537/15784152581_0f19214fb2_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Longyearbyen is one of the northernmost settlements in the world, at about 78 degrees north on a remote, rocky island in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and east of Greenland. Go ahead, look it up; it's pretty far up there. Here's a GPS track of my travel to get here:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15233715254" title="10557075_10100275116970912_6869453110415423760_o by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="10557075_10100275116970912_6869453110415423760_o" height="400" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7463/15233715254_7cd024d966_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The Sun hasn't risen since I got here, and won't for another couple of months, but the place is quite pretty regardless:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15588564867" title="Downtown Longyearbyen by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Downtown Longyearbyen" height="534" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8132/15588564867_d66cf13228_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15796408131" title="Svalbard by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Svalbard" height="450" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7578/15796408131_91f2d05045_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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I'm here for a rocket campaign we're calling <a href="http://zubenelgenubi.smugmug.com/SpacePhysics/Rocketry/CREX/CREX-Sounding-Rocket-Mission/">C-REX</a>, which stands for Cusp Region EXperiment. That site has more info, but the short version is we're studying a density anomaly that occurs in the Earth's magnetic cusp (a region of the magnetosphere, near the north and south poles, open to the solar wind). We will launch a 21 meter rocket to around 600km altitude (higher than the space station!) and it will release 24 sub-payloads on the way back down. These sub-payloads are artificial chemical-clouds that will glow in the twilit sky, some of them drifting with the high altitude wind and some convecting with the magnetic field. <a href="http://zubenelgenubi.smugmug.com/SpacePhysics/Rocketry/CREX/CREX-Sounding-Rocket-Mission/">This summer I went to North Carolina or a test launch of this system</a> and, though that first test was unsuccessful, we did have a mostly successful launch on the second attempt. I now realize I never wrote that up here, so here is a picture and a video of the test release:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14880829347" title="Rocket release by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Rocket release" height="534" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5571/14880829347_02d10d7d1d_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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There are more polar bears (<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">isbjørn - 'ice-bear') </span>than people on Svalbard, and to quote a recent Facebook status of mine: "The polar bear is not only the largest land predator on Earth (and unequaled in sheer physical power), it's also the only one that will attack humans as a regular matter of finding food, rather than only attacking humans when it's sick or weak or starving or defensive. They can go 8 months without eating, and can smell a seal buried under 3 feet of snow from a mile away. It spends its whole life alone, only tolerating other bears for mating and brief interactions, and is constantly on the move, walking a few thousand miles per year. It is also an excellent swimmer, with one radio collared bear having swam continuously for 9 days through the Bering Sea to reach ice 400 miles from land, where she then immediately walked another 1,100 miles." They're amazing animals but require caution and respect, so UNIS (University Center in Svalbard) provides a training class that includes polar bear behavior and practice with flare guns and rifles. Here's me firing a flashbang out of the flare gun. Yes, we're trained to look away from the signal gun when we fire it, due to 1. It's not that accurate of a weapon to begin with, and 2. The possibility of blowback into your eyes:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15635568967" title="Me firing a flare gun by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Me firing a flare gun" height="534" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7582/15635568967_8fa5fc56ed_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15201311813" title="Flashbang by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Flashbang" height="534" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7482/15201311813_026aac31c6_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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I also took a couple of visits up to the KHO Observatory to help install cameras there. To get to KHO we drive up to Mine 7, a few miles from town, then since the road isn't maintained in winter we switch to this awesome tracked snow wagon to climb the last mile or so to the observatory:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15236454933" title="10733900_10100275658700282_5085335182962834321_o by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="10733900_10100275658700282_5085335182962834321_o" height="534" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7499/15236454933_b4c52d0a0f_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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We pass the Svalbard <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EISCAT">EISCAT</a> site during the snow wagon ride:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15771849781" title="Dishes by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Dishes" height="450" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8536/15771849781_9d0604b43a_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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And the other morning we took our first shakedown flight in the NASA aircraft, everything seems to be ready to go. I took this shot of some aurora to the south towards the almost-but-not-quite-sunrise:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15213420643" title="This morning over the Arctic Ocean by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="This morning over the Arctic Ocean" height="534" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5615/15213420643_84eb006461_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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So here I am. Our first opportunity for launch comes Monday morning, my role is to fly in a NASA aircraft and photo/film the releases from the air just south of Svalbard; we also have observers running cameras at Kjell Henriksen Observatory on top of a mountain just outside Longyearbyen (central-west Svalbard) and at the Japanese Rabben Observatory in Ny-Ålesund (northwest Svalbard). I gave the local photo club a brief presentation on what to expect so hopefully some of them will be able to get some great photos of what should be a beautiful event; 24 of those glowing clouds over the epic Svalbard landscape. I know I'll have several cameras set up to hopefully get something, though that requires planning since I myself will be on the airplane at the time of launch. Here's hoping for the best.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-74454668416054733262014-10-10T07:06:00.002-07:002014-10-10T07:10:12.897-07:00Pluto is or isn't a planet<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/02/a-vote-for-plutos-reinstatement-as-a-planet/">This</a> happened recently. Short version, some people are still upset about the 2009 redefinition of Pluto to 'not a planet'. Quoting from the article: "The decision did not sit well with the public. Some amateur stargazers and some astronomers thought it rather arbitrary." So they held some kind of vote and the audience voted to 'reinstate' Pluto as a planet.<br />
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You remember when the whole 'Pluto isn't a planet' thing happened right? It was all over the media, and people were up in arms on social media. You'd think it was BIG SCIENCE NEWS based on all that. I got asked recently, as I did several times back then, what was my position on it since I'm an 'astronomy person'. My position is I don't care. This isn't BIG SCIENCE NEWS, it's semantics. Nothing new was discovered, no new theory was proposed. Whether you call Pluto a planet or not changes nothing about what it <i>is</i>. It's trivial.<br />
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Here's the thing, I don't think this is a one-off misunderstanding about Pluto. I think this is a symptom of a deeper problem that a lot of people don't understand a fundamental aspect of science. Here's an illustration of the 'Pluto problem':<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXu9D1gdVWv3XLUqKNH6v2I6PrN40IbSFXYsH61Rl0pegWwdlehdlmM-rqociOkpVckdqWK5shSW90c0cFmygghS8HXAtBq-m27grnNpUzGJuXfGERC9VTByI0OkNln9p7dWAe20o532d/s1600/plutoplanet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXu9D1gdVWv3XLUqKNH6v2I6PrN40IbSFXYsH61Rl0pegWwdlehdlmM-rqociOkpVckdqWK5shSW90c0cFmygghS8HXAtBq-m27grnNpUzGJuXfGERC9VTByI0OkNln9p7dWAe20o532d/s1600/plutoplanet.jpg" height="160" width="320" /></a></div>
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The 'problem' here has nothing to do with Pluto, it's taking the black-and-white taxonomic categories too literally. The universe (at least on the macroscopic scale) is a continuum, but we like to classify things into boxes. <i>This</i> or <i>that</i>, <i>is</i> or <i>is not</i>. But the real world just isn't like that. Where do you draw the line separating the 'planet' box from the 'not a planet' box? You can draw it anywhere, and no matter where you put it the things on one side of the line aren't going to be very different from the things on the other side of the line. You try to put the line in the most useful place possible but it's still arbitrary by it's very nature. This is a 'problem' of applying binary logic to a continuum.<br />
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I'm not sure if this system of categorizing things into boxes is useful in itself or it's only useful because our brains want to work that way, but either way it's useful. The concept of a species is extremely useful in biology even if, when you look close, you realize <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem">the concept doesn't apply very well to the reality</a>. Taking the concept for reality is probably a big factor in popular misunderstandings and misrepresentations of evolution - it's pretty easy to take the concept and say something silly like 'one species can't give birth to another', and that makes sense if you think 'species' represents a real division in nature.<br />
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I'm not saying to forget the boxes, the boxes are still a useful way of thinking. But at the end of the day you have to remember <i>we</i> invented the boxes. <i>We</i> decide what goes in what box, and putting something in one box rather than another doesn't change anything about the way things are. It's a mental tool to help you understand how things relate to one another; the boxes aren't a real part of nature.<br />
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"Some amateur stargazers and some astronomers thought it rather arbitrary." Well duh.<br />
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As an aside, I should mention something about how thousands of science enthusiasts got up in arms to defend the way they were taught rather than being willing to change their mental model to best fit the world. This is the same attitude they'll decry in their anti-science bogeymen.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-55286798184352478702014-09-23T21:02:00.003-07:002014-09-23T21:02:58.254-07:00Nabesna Ghost Town<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15335495722" title="Camping in a ghost town by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Camping in a ghost town" height="684" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3849/15335495722_4842cec191_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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This weekend I planned to take a kayak trip down the Delta River, from Tangle Lakes to just below Phelan Creek and Rainbow Ridge. But the weather forecast was bad, so at the last minute (inspired by <a href="http://adamspictureblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/ghost-towns-road-to-nabesna.html">this blog post</a> popping up in my news feed) the plan was changed to visit the old mining town of Nabesna. Nabesna is at the end of Nabesna Road in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, America's largest national park (larger than Vermont and New Hampshire combined), which contains only two roads: The McCarthy Road to Kennicott, where all the visitors go, and the Nabesna Road, where almost no one goes. I've been to the end of the Nabesna Road before, and walked up to the Rambler Mine, but I didn't know there was another mine and ghost town just another mile down the path.<br />
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I couldn't find much info about Nabesna online, other than it's about 2 miles past the official end of the road, so I decided to just go for it. Worst case scenario I spend a day hiking off the Nabesna Road, which isn't so bad. Drew and I left Fairbanks about 8:00pm Friday, camped out next to the Chistochina River just east of Gakona, and got up early to hit the Nabesna Road around 8:00am. We stopped at the ranger station at the beginning of the road in Slana, where we got a free CD of an audio tour to play along the road. The narration was interesting, it was worth the stop. The ranger asked where we heading and I said we wanted to try to get all the way to Nabesna. She told me what I already knew, that the road ends about 2 miles short of the town. I asked if there was any possibility of driving the final 2 miles and she said no, 'ankle express' only. I didn't press on whether she was just saying that because she didn't think we'd make it. With that, we headed down the road.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150558550" title="DSC_1389-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1389-2" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3904/15150558550_7f5ba1fca4_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150558940" title="DSC_1385-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1385-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3886/15150558940_978ebee704.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15337279025" title="DSC_1382-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1382-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15337279025_e52b00dbdc.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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For the first half of the road, there's national park on the right side and national preserve on the left side. The main difference is that only local subsistence hunters can hunt in the park. We saw many spruce grouse on the road, and we intended to make a dinner out of a few but could only go after grouse on the left side of the road. We did get 4 grouse, and decided that was enough so just passed by the rest.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/UL7Kned47nY" width="853"></iframe><br />
<br />
By the way, do you know the fast way to clean a spruce grouse? The Alaska Fish and Game website mentions it as an aside, with the advice that it's 'probably better demonstrated than described'. So, here's a video where I demonstrate it. This is absurd enough that I think it's more interesting than anything, but this is a video of me literally ripping a grouse in half. You've been warned:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OnZ4YKT3Rs4" width="853"></iframe><br />
<br />
We parked at the end of the road and decided to hike the last bit to Nabesna. ~1.5 miles further on we came to a fork in the road, with a very overgrown path ahead and an opening to smelly tailings mud on the right. We took the right fork and were at what I assume was the Nabesna processing plant (the actual mine was visible much further up the mountain).<br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15314255676" title="DSC_1268-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1268-2" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15314255676_423190a2d4_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
<br />
We had left the bulk of our water supply in the car, hoping to find a stream to filter from, but none were apparent. More importantly, we realized we left the beer in the car. After walking the road in I was pretty sure my car could make it, so we left our packs, walked the short distance back to the car, and drove the car all the way in to Nabesna. No big difficulty, just an exercise in dodging ruts. A car with less ground clearance might have trouble as the entrance/exit angles ot some of the mudholes was steeper than it looks in this video. I parked at the garage next to an old yellow truck:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VGNEMto1P34" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150508499" title="DSC_1360-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1360-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3920/15150508499_e26be4f25c.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150744047" title="DSC_1361-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1361-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15150744047_b3d200dc9e.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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We walked on into town and started looking into the various cabins. Apparently this town once housed around 200 people. We found 4 rows of cabins, with possibly more hidden in the brush, and the two middle rows had boardwalks down them:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15336976912" title="DSC_1272-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1272-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3915/15336976912_ce8b253bc5.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15336971002" title="DSC_1308-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1308-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15336971002_4ce2faba7b.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15337285745" title="DSC_1309-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1309-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15337285745_402e797664.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Near the center were two larger cabins which, judging by the contents, were the lab/workshop and the office/kitchen. We settled upon the office as the most welcoming, and cached our gear inside.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15312783996" title="Nabesna AK by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Nabesna AK" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3842/15312783996_9324ef1fac_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Time to explore!<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15336976492" title="DSC_1280-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1280-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3854/15336976492_ffb454d971.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15314254466" title="DSC_1285-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1285-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15314254466_fc61f2a934.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Item number one in the 'do not touch' list. Potassium Nitrate is a strong oxidizer, and being sealed for so long, crystals may form under the lid that get crushed/scraped when opened. I'm not sure how dangerous that is without a flame nearby, but now isn't the time to find out:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150701158" title="DSC_1286-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1286-2" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15150701158_104fbdb8a1_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150570460" title="DSC_1290-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1290-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3929/15150570460_9b12d01cea.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150752927" title="DSC_1293-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1293-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15150752927_4f7cc36a1e.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150516959" title="DSC_1294-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1294-2" height="281" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15150516959_fb7e7582af.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150699868" title="DSC_1295-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1295-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3874/15150699868_28f14a791e.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<br />
Item number two for 'Do not touch'. Not sure if this is just a box or if there's actually anything dangerous in it. Old dynamite sweats nitroglycerine, which is a contact explosive:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15314252686" title="DSC_1297-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1297-2" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3835/15314252686_d3ef671280_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150515719" title="DSC_1298-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1298-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15150515719_cff19a8e4e.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15314251946" title="DSC_1299-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1299-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3910/15314251946_2ce3dda24a.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Lab notes, unmarked chemicals. We'll not touch that one too just to be safe:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150568000" title="DSC_1300-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1300-2" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3881/15150568000_45607d0437_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15334108031" title="DSC_1301-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1301-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3887/15334108031_f743ef6ee4.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15336971792" title="DSC_1303-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1303-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3837/15336971792_25f9c2bddb.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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1939 mining journals. I think the mine was most active in the 30's-50's, though there was a good bit of clutter from the 80's and a couple of more recent pieces:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150696998" title="DSC_1306-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1306-2" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15150696998_09518a9207_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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We then walked over to the processing plant for more exploring:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15335811625" title="Nabesna AK by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Nabesna AK" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3862/15335811625_3bb74c2636_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150564870" title="DSC_1322-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1322-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15150564870_4cbaf0bbfb.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15337285075" title="DSC_1319-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1319-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3864/15337285075_46fdbb4dcb.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150564590" title="DSC_1330-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1330-2" height="334" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3876/15150564590_9ab0ca1260.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15334104851" title="DSC_1337-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1337-2" height="334" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15334104851_fda69aaef0.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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There was a chute coming from the (dry) stream uphill, leading to this big turbine:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150694018" title="DSC_1339-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1339-2" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15150694018_22e21a92a9_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Then flywheels set in the ceiling above it:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15335498892" title="Flywheels in the ceiling by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Flywheels in the ceiling" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15335498892_eb00d08b97_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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It looks like they tapped the stream for water power, turning the turbine for electricity and the flywheels to power some machinery directly.<br />
<br />
The view from the plant of the mountains and river was spectacular:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/15149101850" title="Nabesna AK by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Nabesna AK" height="450" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3840/15149101850_76505e8bb3_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br /><br />By this point it was getting late, time to cook dinner. Drew found a splitting maul and an axe so we cut some wood, cleaned the grouse breasts, and built a smoker out of some scavenged metal grate, aluminum foil from the kitchen, a beat up washtub and some planks to seal it. We ate 2.5 birds for dinner and used the rest to make toasted grouse and pepperjack sandwiches for lunch the next day.<br />
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From looking like some horrific thing from your nightmares to tasty sandwiches:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150743537" title="DSC_1363-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1363-2" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2943/15150743537_ddbb9ccdb8_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150507669" title="DSC_1362-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1362-2" height="281" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3844/15150507669_40e8518394.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150507159" title="DSC_1364-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1364-2" height="281" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15150507159_b783170ea9.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150560520" title="DSC_1366-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1366-2" height="281" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3930/15150560520_5037f321ce.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150742727" title="DSC_1368-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1368-2" height="281" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2942/15150742727_d88cd91ef9.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15337279485" title="DSC_1370-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1370-2" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3869/15337279485_1c80a73678_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The Sun was starting to go down, and we expected it to get chilly at night so we cleared an area in the middle of the office floor to set up our tents, as seen in the first picture here. And we were never heard from again...<br />
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Well I can at least say it was VERY dark in my tent, in a building, under an overcast sky. But it was quiet and calm and warm(ish). I was woken up by some unidentified small animal scampering through the piles of old maps right next to my tent. We packed up and headed back to Fairbanks, with a last view of ~16,000 fot Mt Sanford on the way out:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15150558270" title="DSC_1402-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1402-2" height="450" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3867/15150558270_8a8e54e061_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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BONUS ADVENTURE<br />
<br />
Near Isabel Pass there's a road that looks like it goes up towards a glacier. We decided to see how far it goes. The answer is 2 miles or so, as the road gradually turns into a creek. Here's 4 minutes of video from driving back out, so the creek turns more roadlike the further you go.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XPHm96X6vwk" width="853"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15336961332" title="DSC_1432-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1432-2" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15336961332_afb0b7afac_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Also, this:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/15334097571" title="DSC_1413-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1413-2" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3887/15334097571_79753028d5_c.jpg" width="800" /></a>musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-42273357713866003352014-09-01T06:10:00.000-07:002014-09-01T06:10:42.408-07:00How to photograph the aurora: Part 2I just saw <a href="http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/explainer-how-photograph-northern-lights">this page</a> shared with a beginner to help them photograph the aurora. It's typical of the advice given to amateurs, and (in my opinion) typically bad and/or irrelevant. Here's why:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Location is a key factor when preparing to photograph the northern lights. A clear shot of northern and eastern skies is helpful.</span></blockquote>
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Right from the start they're advising you to do something boring. If you go somewhere that's clear and empty all the way to the north so you just see the aurora above a distant horizon, your picture will be <i>boring</i>.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">As activity increases it normally starts from the east as Earth rotates into the aurora.</span></blockquote>
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...No. The auroral surges come from the east pre-midnight because that's the direction from which the magnetic field lines are convecting. Post-midnight the auroral surges come from the west. Earth's rotation had nothing to do with this.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">there are lots of other [places to photograph the aurora], just look for cars parked along the roads</span></blockquote>
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And you will spend your whole night fighting the headlights and flashlights of all those people you stopped next to. And for what? The aurora looks the same a mile down the road as it does right there.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">How about a tripod? If you've got one, dust it off and figure out its use before you're out in the cold, where the plastic becomes brittle and has a tendency to break in extreme temperatures.</span></blockquote>
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Don't get a plastic tripod. They wobble. The whole point of a tripod is not to wobble.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Camera batteries in the cold lose power real quick ... At 40 below zero, a camera battery lasts around 20 minutes.</span></blockquote>
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*Shrug* I've never needed to swap my batteries during a shoot. If I'm going to leave the camera running hands-off for a while I pull a neck gaiter over the camera, with the lens poking out one end, to keep the wind off, and my standard battery will last a couple hours at 40 below. I don't suppose it's bad advice, but it's not that big of a worry.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Keep a Ziploc bag handy for storing your camera</span></blockquote>
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Take the memory card out of the camera before you go back inside, put the camera in some kind of a bag you can close, and don't open it till morning. Your backpack or regular camera bag is fine; it doesn't need to be waterproof. If you forget to take the memory card out before you go inside, just open the bag, take it out, and reclose it. Your camera will be fine.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Make sure your in-camera storage media card is clear of any other photos. Long exposures require a lot of room.</span></blockquote>
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I... what? It takes the same amount of memory to store a pixel of the same value, regardless of how long it took to capture that pixel. I find aurora photos often require less storage room than daylight photos.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Lens filters can also produce what's known as a ghosting reflection between filter and front glass of the lens.</span></blockquote>
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Not unless you're looking at something really bright and localized, like a street light or the moon. The aurora will not do this. The filter will, however, work as an interferometer and leave diffraction rings in your photo. This happens anytime you use the filter, but it's only noticeable when looking at a monochromatic light source like the aurora. So yeah, take your filters off... that's just not the reason why.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Rotating a lens's manual focus clockwise will set it to infinity. A good rule of thumb is to rotate the lens to infinity and then back it off just a hair. </span></blockquote>
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Which direction you rotate the lens to focus to infinity is absolutely dependent on the lens. Nikon brand lenses usually go the opposite direction of Canon brand lenses, and I use lenses on my camera that go both ways. And regardless, this is not how you should set your focus. Find the brightest far away point source, which will be the Moon if it's up, a distant street light if one's visible, or the brightest star otherwise. Point at it, switch to live view, zoom all the way in (digital/live view screen zoom, not lens zoom), and focus. You can use the chromatic aberration to set the focus: When you pass through focus the fringes change from purple to green.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Set your lens aperture to the lowest number.</span></blockquote>
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Probably, but maybe not. Fast lenses usually have a lot of aberration when used wide open, and it's a lot more visible on point sources like stars than it is in daylight pictures. You're going to have to decide for yourself where you want to set the compromise between speed and sharpness. I usually shoot my f/1.8 lenses at f/2, and if the aurora is bright enough to get away with it I'll go to f/2.8.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Some cameras also have a long exposure noise reduction function. If yours has it, turn it on.</span></blockquote>
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I would never use this. The camera takes a dark frame after each exposure and subtracts it from the light image. You can do this yourself in Photoshop or whatever, without wasting the time to take a new dark frame <i>every single exposure</i>. The aurora isn't going to wait for that.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">On DSL cameras, mirror opening and closing creates most vibrations in long exposures. There are other options, though. Most cameras are equipped with a self-timer. Set it to a short time and push the shutter release to minimize camera movement. If "mirror lock up" is an option, use it.</span></blockquote>
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If mirror slap is seriously causing vibrations in your aurora photos, your tripod is so worthless you might as well be balancing the camera on a rock. This is a consideration for long focal length astrophotography, not wide angle aurora work.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">If the preview shows up black, do not, repeat, DO NOT, delete. Your camera will capture more than meets the eye. Due to long exposures, cameras record a lot more than the eye can process, and more than likely you won't be able to see it on the camera screen.</span></blockquote>
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This is all kinds of What. A long exposure is not going to be black on your preview screen by virtue of the fact that it's a long exposure: The value of each pixel is integrated over the exposure, and the preview shows the final image, which is the <i>total</i> light in that pixel. If it's black on your preview screen, it's not going to get any less black on your computer. If it's merely <i>dark</i> on the preview, you may be okay depending on how noisy it is. And you should look at the histogram and not rely totally on the preview image: The preview image is a processed .jpg, if you're shooting RAW (and you should be) the histogram is a better idea of what you have and haven't captured. The RAW file will hold low-level stuff that doesn't show up on the preview, but this is because the preview can only show 8 bits while the RAW captures 12 or 14; it has nothing to do with the fact that it's a long exposure.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 13px;">Once you've found a good exposure setting, avoid looking at the preview.</span></blockquote>
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So how do you know when you need to change the exposure?<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 13px;">Don't breathe on or around the camera.</span></blockquote>
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Okay, I will stop breathing. :/ Just direct your breath away from the optics, okay?musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-67588287629875058862014-08-08T12:12:00.000-07:002014-08-08T12:12:10.005-07:00Sprites 2014<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14720152851" title="Sprites and airglow over Laramie by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Sprites and airglow over Laramie" height="684" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2895/14720152851_e160fcafbf_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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The Sprites 2014 campaign has concluded, and we mostly got burned by the weather. This year, instead of doing an aerial campaign, we set up at Wyoming Infrared Observatory on top of Jelm Mountain, WY. The first night was very good; for a while we were seeing about a sprite per minute. I got around 30 new dSLR images of sprites during that time frame, but since they were visible above the Laramie light pollution most of them were too faint to be very interesting. The best was the one above, and this one with the Andromeda Galaxy on the left was nice:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14720945624" title="Sprites, airglow, Andromeda Galaxy by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Sprites, airglow, Andromeda Galaxy" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3872/14720945624_0e6803ed0a_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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But after that first night, the weather never really cooperated again to give us a good amount of sprites in a clear part of sky. The sky at 10,000 feet and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale">Bortle class 1</a> was very nice so I took a few pictures of just the Milky Way and airglow:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14785072803" title="Milky Way, airglow, and storm over Fort Collins, CO by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Milky Way, airglow, and storm over Fort Collins, CO" height="450" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3885/14785072803_8237a5185b_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14708026166" title="Milky Way from Wyoming Infrared Observatory by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Milky Way from Wyoming Infrared Observatory" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14708026166_8f3657b502_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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And I spent a couple hours one night setting up to do wide field astrophotography (the best kind :P) of the constellation Cygnus with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America_Nebula">North America Nebula</a> which turned out pretty nice:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14740783324" title="North America Nebula in the Cygnus constellation by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="North America Nebula in the Cygnus constellation" height="531" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5559/14740783324_a63d9672c5_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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I really need to figure out the cold weather issues with my clock drive so I can do these kind of shots from Alaska where the sky is dark and super stable due to the cold.<br />
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I also flew the drone around the observatory a few times, this one it was too windy so I immediately brought it back down to land:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/jyx2QNn0z7M" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Then a few days later it was calm enough to get a good flight:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/sXLu-cgG6eE" width="560"></iframe><br />
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And then the last morning there I tried one more flight on another calm wind morning, but for some reason my drone throttled up but wouldn't throttle down, so I watched it disappear into the sky and never saw it again :(<br />
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I've since been back on the White Salmon River in Washington, from Monday evening until now. I've been doing trip photography for All Adventures Rafting and made a little money, and I expect we'll see some of my photos on their <a href="http://www.alladventuresrafting.com/">website</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/alladventures">Facebook page</a>. Today I'm heading out to drive north back to Alaska. Later y'all.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-54047138543677666012014-07-15T05:28:00.002-07:002014-07-15T05:33:02.033-07:00Capitol Reef National Park<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14414833538" title="New Mexico by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="New Mexico" height="684" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/14414833538_abd44bdef0_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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^ Road sign representative of northern New Mexico, which really has nothing to do with anything else in this post.<br />
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Capitol Reef, in south central Utah, is a severely underrated national park. The parks in southern Utah are some of the best in the country, and while places like Arches or Zion get all the publicity, Capitol Reef has top notch desert scenery without the crowds. A lot of the park is accessible via rough two-track trails, and I decided to drive Cathedral Valley road, which goes through (surprise) Cathedral Valley, including a couple of rock formations called Temple of the Sun and Temple of the Moon that I've wanted to visit and photograph for a couple of years but haven't had a vehicle I could confidently drive out there.<br />
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I mounted my GoPro to the roof of the car to film the drive down Cathedral Valley Road, using the GoPro suction cup mount. Like basically everything else GoPro branded, the mount sounds good in theory but doesn't actually work very well. The video was extremely shaky, and the entire mount would pop loose every few minutes. Eventually I gave up on the GoPro mount and stuck the camera on my GorillaPod on the hood, with one of the feet stuck under a wiper blade. This worked better, but I still wasn't satisfied with it. I think I'm going to rig up some better mounting system. A tripod ball head on the front of the roof rack should be good, and allows me to mount better cameras than the GoPro.<br />
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The western half of Cathedral Valley road had a steep, loose descent down to the valley floor which could be interesting for a 2WD vehicle on ascent. Then it was sandy road most of the way. After arriving at Temple of the Sun/Moon in late afternoon, I did a few pictures:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14640246492" title="Capitol Reef backcountry by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Capitol Reef backcountry" height="534" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5560/14640246492_3f998002e1_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14454106259" title="Capitol Reef backcountry by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Capitol Reef backcountry" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3876/14454106259_afcfded250_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Then I got the drone out and did a flight right over Temple of the Moon:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lRQ8qkHWpNQ" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I wanted to shoot the formations in good sunset light, and again after dark. So I pulled into the shade under Temple of the Moon and set up a timelapse while I waited. Then I laid out my sleeping pad and went for a four hour nap until sunset. I woke up an hour and a half later with grit in my teeth from the wind whipping everywhere. Seems a storm was brewing while I was asleep:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DRXG0nUSOsk" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Now it was decision time: I could keep waiting for sunset, risking the rain. The problem with rain is the road crossed several muddy washes that could turn into flash floods pretty easily, then I'd be stuck waiting for the water to go back down. Since the clouds looked like they'd ruin my evening and nighttime shots anyway, I decided to get while the gettin' was good. The eastern half of the road went through some really neat badlands-style scenery with lots of switchbacks on slickrock around small canyons and mesas. Definitely the more interesting half of the road, and also less rough; a regular passenger car could do this in good weather. I stopped for a picture:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14474073228" title="10498149_10100208442312462_2637982617513847001_o by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="10498149_10100208442312462_2637982617513847001_o" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2907/14474073228_9ba9ddce90_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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And then it was back out to the highway. It took all afternoon to go 50 miles. I guess I'll have to come back another time since I didn't get to shoot the location the way I wanted.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-82888803058954884152014-07-09T02:43:00.001-07:002014-07-09T02:52:26.805-07:00North Carolina Outer Banks<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14558986671" title="Seashell by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Seashell" height="576" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3881/14558986671_35293326c3_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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After my time in the Columbia River Gorge, I hopped a plane to the other side of the country to spend a week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This one was for business: I was supporting a rocket launch to test a new mechanism we'll use this fall in Svalbard. The rocket's purpose is to release a trail of luminous clouds in the high atmosphere, the clouds drift with the winds way up there, and we watch to learn about those high altitude winds. My job was to run some of the cameras that track the clouds. The rocket launches from NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's eastern shore, and a slew of cameras is deployed both there and down at the town of Duck on the NC Outer Banks. We need cameras at two locations to be able to pinpoint the clouds in 3 dimensions. I was in charge of the 'remote' site at Duck, which was on a concrete patio behind the building at a US Army Corps of Engineers site. I got my gear set up first thing:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14424778117" title="10393173_10100199587717142_4976832917282578767_n by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="10393173_10100199587717142_4976832917282578767_n" height="394" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/14424778117_c269371cda_o.jpg" width="526" /></a><br />
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The larger tripod at the right is a <i>very</i> nice cinema tripod holding three scientific cameras; left to right, an Andor iXon EMCCD, a CCD video camera with an image intensifier, and an ATIK astronomical CCD. The computers on the table are necessary to run the EMCCD and ATIK, while the gear to run the ICCD is just inside the building on long cables. To the left are two Nikon D700s that a guy from Wallops was running, and I had a Nikon D610 running as well. We fielded so many cameras to get an idea of which worked best so we would know what to take to Svalbard.<br />
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After getting the setup worked out, my job was to be on station by 2:00am each morning and wait until our potential launch time around 4:30am. I usually arrived around 1:00am to be sure I was setup and ready to go well before necessary, and left around 5:30am. I slept until about 2:00pm then had the afternoon and evening to explore. The western side of the island is swampy:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14567453753" title="Swamp mud by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Swamp mud" height="360" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2896/14567453753_c162ca5fec_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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While the eastern side is beach:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14352829760" title="Beach by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Beach" height="428" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5314/14352829760_989e6b1661_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Like everyone who's spent a lot of time in Alaska, I shrink like a vampire when exposed to bright direct sunlight. But after walking outside it only takes a few minutes to get used to it, and otherwise the weather was great (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-carolina-storm-heads-toward-outer-banks/2014/07/02/5662fae6-0228-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html">that would change the day after I left</a>), varying from the 70s to the high 80s with a constant stiff breeze coming off the ocean. My favorite thing about the beach is the soundscape: The wind and waves give a good constant white noise, and the seabirds punctuate it well. I should get one of those 'sounds of the beach' tapes or something. I do feel like the beach is sort of a boring place to visit overall, at least the southeast and gulf coast beaches, where it's just a flat slope of sand into water. It seems like most of the interesting things you could do at the beach require too much gear and/or practice to be feasible for a visitor. If I lived here, I could definitely see myself taking advantage of the wind to take up kite boarding, and my whitewater kayak would probably be a lot of fun in the surf.<br />
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The first two nights we couldn't launch the rocket due to clouds and winds. The site I was working at has a private pier that sticks half a kilometer out into the water, which I spent a lot of time walking along. It's pretty dark out there, with no sounds but the wind and waves, which is kind of creepy (in a neat way) when you can't see anything and you're just walking through blackness listening to the sea. After your eyes have time to adjust to the dark, it's pretty nice:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14552103983" title="Milky Way over Duck NC by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Milky Way over Duck NC" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3881/14552103983_173e3ed532_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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Also, since the pier is private, people don't walk out there often, so seabirds have taken to roosting on the end. When I walked out there in the dark I scared them up, but since it was dark they couldn't see to fly anywhere so they just hovered on the wind all around me, not making any noise other than the flapping of their wings (which is rather loud on larger birds!). It was dark enough that I couldn't even tell if they were large gulls or pelicans, even though they were floating only a few feet away.<br />
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During the days I spent a lot of time in the Hatteras Island National Seashore just to the south, walking along the wild beaches and taking pictures in the afternoon light. Here's a couple from a 'focus on the blowing sand' afternoon:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14559046961" title="Seashell and blowing sand by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Seashell and blowing sand" height="450" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5493/14559046961_fdbeaea5d2_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14560788774" title="Blowing sand by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Blowing sand" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/14560788774_62e02e93da_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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And the Bodie Island lighthouse not long after sunset (it gets dark fast this far south!):<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14352877758" title="Bodie Island Lighthouse and Moon by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Bodie Island Lighthouse and Moon" height="400" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3844/14352877758_9253334c16_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The next two nights we had the weather conditions but couldn't launch because of commercial fishing boats in the impact area, which was annoying. One of those mornings after we shut down for the night I decided to walk out to the end of the pier and wait for sunrise:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14354920530" title="Pier sunrise by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Pier sunrise" height="428" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2930/14354920530_57272d7fdb_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14518457916" title="Pier sunrise by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Pier sunrise" height="428" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5532/14518457916_5e466e0d29_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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While waiting, I started hearing a weird air venting noise. It sounded like a pipe that reached down to water level, and would blow air out the top when a wave passed in the bottom. So I started looking around and found that it was actually a pod of dolphins right under me, and the sound was their breathing.<br />
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The beaches, especially the less-traveled wild beaches, have a lot of ghost crabs scampering around. Ghost crabs are well camouflaged, fast, and skittish, so getting decent pictures isn't easy. Challenge accepted? I took a seat next to a few active crab holes and waited. As they got more used to me, they'd come out of their holes and stay put as long as I didn't move. I worked my way closer and closer like this, and eventually made it close enough to set my camera right outside their holes and lay in the sand behind it, tripping the shutter with a cable release. I started with my 150mm macro lens:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14360672980" title="Ghost crab by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Ghost crab" height="534" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3850/14360672980_6324bf1e35_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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But decided this could be better if I used a wider 50mm lens to get more of the environment in the shot:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14375903537" title="Ghost crab by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Ghost crab" height="450" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3896/14375903537_0d76439592_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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And I ended up pretty happy with this one taken just after sunset, with the crashing waves and pink sky behind:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14360686950" title="Ghost crab sunset by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Ghost crab sunset" height="576" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5539/14360686950_a875d427f6_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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I would have liked to try using a flash but I didn't bring one, and it probably would have scared the crabs too much anyway.<br />
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On early July 3, our last chance of the launch window, we finally got our opportunity to launch. Unfortunately, the rocket failed at the second stage and tumbled back to the ground like a giant flare. I think it only made it up to 27,000 feet. So we didn't even get to test the mechanism we wanted to test. Here's the video from Wallops of launch, which looks like something out of Kerbal Space Program:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BUDll2uXGOI" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Afterwards I packed all the gear up, finishing just after sunrise:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14582538553" title="Sunrise on the pier by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Sunrise on the pier" height="428" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3920/14582538553_60d5e3527b_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Aaand back to the other side of the country where I began my drive to Arkansas.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-41203035480053746362014-06-25T22:17:00.001-07:002014-06-25T23:39:05.157-07:00A week in the Columbia River Gorge<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14307068840" title="Descent by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Descent" height="576" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2919/14307068840_66d0e35070_b.jpg" width="1024" /></a><br />
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I've spent the last week staying with friends just outside of White Salmon WA, spending most of my time rafting and exploring the area, which has been pretty great.<br />
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The most memorable part has been tagging along on whitewater rafting trips down the White Salmon River with my buddy's company <a href="http://www.alladventuresrafting.com/">All Adventures Rafting</a>. If you're looking for some river fun in the area, you could certainly do worse. The White Salmon is an absolutely beautiful (and exciting!) river; the All Adventures guides are skilled, knowledgeable, and fun; and the owners just want to share their love of the river. Look them up. Here's me smiling at the camera as we plunge into the Rattlesnake wave while everyone else screams and holds on, taken by <a href="http://www.whitesalmonphoto.com/pro.photo.and.video/$55.special.html">White Salmon Photography</a>:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14323692517" title="CBO_8236 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="CBO_8236" height="360" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5530/14323692517_a4f88e963d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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And a few shots from the spots on the river calm enough for me to get my camera out:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14323463350" title="DSC_2408 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2408" height="214" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3905/14323463350_694c8e5979_n.jpg" width="320" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14323517909" title="DSC_2400 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2400" height="180" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2903/14323517909_c0f017a3be_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14510119945" title="DSC_2413 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2413" height="428" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2939/14510119945_060370f034_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The White Salmon is a class 3+/4 river with a class 5 drop, Husum Falls. It's fed from the White Salmon Glacier on Mount Adams, which leaks down into the porous lava rock then pops out of the ground as many many springs. So, being glacier water that is underground for most of its journey, the river water is extraordinarily clean and cold, and you can pull off to the side and drink from the springs dribbling in from the edges. The rafts pass through three gorges made from collapsed underground lava tubes and volcanic mud deposits. Cedar waxwings, mergansers, ospreys, and bald eagles are common sights from the rafts, and the bottom end of the run is through 'new' river being carved out from the sediment left over after the Condit Dam was removed in 2011. Watch this video of the dam being breached and the reservoir draining; it's wild:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4LxMHmw3Z-U" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I rode along on raft trips my first three days here, and today I passed up on a trip and instead did some photography from shore. Here's one of the All Adventures boats going through Rattlesnake with a customer 'riding the bull' - sitting on the front tube with their legs dangling in the water:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 24px;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="482" scrolling="no" src="http://gfycat.com/ifr/IllustriousCoolEft" width="720"></iframe></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.gfycat.com/IllustriousCoolEft">If that embed doesn't work well for you, click here to see it</a>. I'm having trouble getting the gfycat embed to work right.<br />
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On the 19th I went to the Big Air Bonanza, which is a small competition put on in the little community of BZ Corner (where the put in for the White Salmon is). The organizer for the event is a former olympic whitewater kayaker, and I've been told he changes the date each year and gives little warning, so even though there are a bunch of people who'd like to compete, only a few end up being there at the right time each year. The audience waiting for a show:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14506716291" title="Untitled1 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="Untitled1" height="640" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3868/14506716291_148ce0f4ef_z.jpg" width="636" /></a><br />
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The premise of the competition is that kayakers paddle upstream into a wave, which forces them underwater, then they do a trick when they pop back out. The audience judges them on whatever criteria they feel like and shout a score, and the scorekeeper just writes down whatever they hear as a common score. The paddler has two minutes, and they can win by doing lots of low-scoring tricks or a few high-scorers. The prizes? Some random household junk. It's all about having fun.<br />
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So I decided to try flying my drone above the trick spot and get some video. I got a little bit of the guy who won first place, then the breezes in the narrow canyon started making me nervous so I brought the drone back, clipping a tree limb (watch for chopped leaves!) then getting chased by a dog. It made for a neat video:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/C-LpBKcwkU8" width="560"></iframe><br />
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After that I was too nervous to try flying over the rapids again so I switched to my D610 and got some nice action shots of boats in weird positions:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14487027916" title="DSC_2361 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2361" height="180" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3845/14487027916_56c3277f47_n.jpg" width="320" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14506731521" title="DSC_2354 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2354" height="214" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14506731521_ffec70b1b3_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14509008602" title="DSC_2313 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2313" height="428" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2903/14509008602_b576d44617_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14323539988" title="DSC_2292 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2292" height="180" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3855/14323539988_47219a4fe2_n.jpg" width="320" /></a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14506738611" title="DSC_2285 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2285" height="214" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3856/14506738611_e4d4e48298_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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I also spent some time driving up in the Mount Adams wilderness area, where there's an awesome system of backroads that are a lot of fun. One hot day my hosts and I were discussing what to do, and I suggested 'Are there any caves? Caves are cool in both senses of the word.' So they took me to the Guler Ice Cave, where we couldn't go too deep because we didn't realize we should dress warm for an ice cave, and we needed crampons/rope to descend down an ice slide. But the cave entrance was an excellent photography spot, and produced the photo at the top of this post. I also got out onto the 'roadless' area of the lava beds, following a network of jeep trails. Here's some not too interesting 3x video from driving around out there:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qvJpDBzRLF0" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I also saw a <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/cha2.htm">circumhorizon arc</a>, a.k.a. a 'fire rainbow', for the first time. They're not that rare from this latitude, but they're actually impossible to see as far north as Fairbanks.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14323678327" title="DSC_2386 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2386" height="428" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3878/14323678327_02daeee667_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14323530618" title="DSC_2385 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_2385" height="428" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3877/14323530618_e699767fd8_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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I also enjoyed just hanging around the community and being in the 'river' frame of mind. 'Zen and the Art of Whitewater' would make an interesting book; something about working with the current rather than fighting it, looking forward to the next move rather than dwelling on the last one, and helping each other because you're all up the same creek. I like the mindset, and it pervades the river culture - sort of an active type of 'go with the flow' rather than the passive thing normally implied by that phrase. And I should mention the food - veggie breakfast burritos at North Shore Cafe in White Salmon, rotisserie chicken and live music (playing from the back of a truck) on solstice night at Big Mans in Husum, pulled pork nachos and local beer at Everybody's in White Salmon, and truffle pizza and more local beer at Double Mountain in Hood River. It's been a blast.<br />
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Tomorrow morning I fly for Norfolk VA then drive down to Duck NC, where I'll be helping with a rocket launch hopefully on the 28th. Then fly back to WA and start the drive down to AR. Until next time.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-19047396953628361362014-06-14T21:37:00.000-07:002014-06-25T22:41:37.417-07:00North Fork Chena River<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Chena%20River%2C%20Lower%20North%20Fork.htm" target="_blank"><img height="532" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5272/14444676083_c3df91e875_z.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Chena%20River%2C%20Lower%20North%20Fork.htm" target="_blank">Click to open an interactive version of this map</a>.<br />
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I paddled the lower half of the North Fork of the Chena River about a week ago, from the Angel Rocks trailhead to a gravel bar at mile 43. It's a nice class II, with one set of logjams (labeled 'dangerous logjams' on the map) that requires a class III+ move if you don't want to portage. I think I've convinced myself to bring my whitewater boat up from Arkansas.<br />
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The river got quite wide after joining the main fork just above my take out, and I suspect it's easy, fast cruising from there down.<br />
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Anyway, the map has tags for major obstacles, click to open the interactive version, and click the tags for brief descriptions. It should be useful for anyone planning to paddle this section and not sure what to expect. And the water seemed rather cold, dress for it. I was sick the next few days after spending too long wading and swimming trying to extract a friend and his boat from the 'dangerous logjams'.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-10187929034554448562014-05-31T18:38:00.003-07:002014-05-31T18:40:04.041-07:00Trip Report: Middle Chatanika River<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Middle%20Chatanika%20River.htm" target="_blank"><img height="532" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3801/14129872889_62913180db_b.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
<a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Middle%20Chatanika%20River.htm" target="_blank">Click to open an interactive version of this map</a>.<br />
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I paddled the Middle Chatanika River last night, starting about 22:30 and finishing at 2:30am, with plenty of light all night despite the overcast sky.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14129420670" title="Midnight on the Chatanika River by Jason Ahrns, on Flickr"><img alt="Midnight on the Chatanika River" height="360" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3708/14129420670_231d427699_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14312726241" title="DSC_1775-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1775-2" height="360" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3688/14312726241_1722309074_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14292909736" title="DSC_1772-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1772-2" height="360" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3670/14292909736_c5bdb9612b_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The lower end of the run had quite a few logjams and strainers, all but one were negotiable if you were careful. That one is marked on the map, and required a ~20 foot portage around the end of the fallen tree. Also, the course of that part of the river has apparently changed considerably since the USGS topo map was created, as you can see my track didn't come anywhere near following the mapped river course in several places. Not too surprising since the map is from 1956. I noticed it must be old when I was geotagging it to load into my GPS and saw it didn't include the Dalton Highway.<br />
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The put in is easy access at a maintained campsite right next to the highway, there's another easy access point about 5 river miles down on the side of the highway, then the lower point I marked as parking is not accessible by a regular passenger car. There may be easier access nearby. The ~1/4 mile road to that access point is really a jeep/atv trail, <i>just</i> wide enough to get my car down, and pretty steep and muddy in spots. The picture makes it look less steep, but you can tell my headlights are pointing at the ground 3 feet in front of the car, and I'm scraping my bumper that's nearly 9 inches off the ground.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14315963415" title="DSC_1761-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1761-2" height="360" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2934/14315963415_5af95bfcb2_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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But it's doable. This sort of thing is exactly what I built the car for. At the take-out point, which also had a nice campfire ring:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14315969045" title="DSC_1793-2 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1793-2" height="360" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3776/14315969045_76e4d9ce7c_z.jpg" width="640" /></a>musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-89885717984483072562014-05-14T20:45:00.003-07:002014-05-31T18:22:02.957-07:00Trip Report: Granite Tors<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Granite%20Tors.htm" target="_blank"><img height="532" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7343/14185840051_4c3b1d14d9_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Granite%20Tors.htm" target="_blank">Click to open an interactive map in a new tab</a>.<br />
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This weekend I went on an overnight hike to the Granite Tors, a group of large vertical rock outcroppings on top of a ridge above the Chena River. The trail is about 15.5 miles from the parking area, and it's slow going over most of the trail for various reasons - willows, elevation gain, rocks and tussocks at higher elevation. I put together a pretty slick interactive map so you can see the route and photos I took, but I can't figure out how to embed it on this page, so you'll just have to click through to get it.<br />
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Here's the elevation profile color-coded to match the interactive map:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14186548902" title="Granite Tors Elevation Profile by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="Granite Tors Elevation Profile" height="467" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5500/14186548902_9c5e399190_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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The trail starts off through some marsh land, and a crude boardwalk is set up to walk on:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="428" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14178288212/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Climbing the ridge with a loaded pack is hard work, but very rewarding once you're on top. We picked a campsite under one of the tors (location pinned on the interactive map).<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14179124462" title="DSC_0972 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_0972" height="428" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7411/14179124462_25344df7ef_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/13995107298" title="DSC_0973 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_0973" height="428" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5159/13995107298_d828189815_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14178459801" title="DSC_0984 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_0984" height="360" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2925/14178459801_582821acbf_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14181759665" title="DSC_1436 by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_1436" height="428" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2904/14181759665_74862d7ceb_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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It was a great spot that had some shelter from the wind and even had water available right there in a few small tundra ponds, though it tasted like dirt. The evening light enticed me to take a few pictures before turning in to my tent to read a little then go to sleep:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="534" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/13994278028/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="800"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/13985237948/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="428" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/13985231690/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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When I stepped out of the tent at 6:00am, the morning light on the frosty tundra was beautiful, with a fantastic view of the Alaska Range over some more tors to the south:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="450" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/13985232457/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="800"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14178286822/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="428" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14180926245/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/14171917744/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<a href="http://lwpetersen.com/photo-blog/travel-alaska/hiking/finally-granite-tors/" target="_blank">Lee also wrote a blog post about it, click here to read</a>.<br />
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There's a good chance I'll be back here at some point.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-24829429999675182692014-04-10T03:16:00.004-07:002014-05-14T20:52:41.407-07:00Trip Report: Tolovana Hot Springs14May2014 edit: I made a slick interactive map that shows the GPS track and has pins for the photos taken along the way, click the image below to open it in a new tab:<br />
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<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Tolovana%20Hot%20Springs.htm" target="_blank"><img alt="ths" height="534" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2908/14002516347_694839c6a9_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
<a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/84968235/Tolovana%20Hot%20Springs.htm">Click here to open an interactive map in a new tab</a>.<br />
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And here's an elevation profile color-coded to match the interactive map:<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/14002505507" title="Tolovana Hot Springs elevation Profile by Jason Ahrns (secondary account - visit www.flickr.com/photos/musubk), on Flickr"><img alt="Tolovana Hot Springs elevation Profile" height="467" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7384/14002505507_5d50224e93_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><br />
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I made a trip out to Tolovana Hot Springs on March 30-31 with a few friends. It was my first time out there and my first time trekking while carrying my gear on a sled, and I thought I'd share a few pictures and thoughts.<br />
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First, the trail itself. It's 10.1 miles from the parking area at Elliot Highway mile 93. There are sign posts every mile on the trail so it's easy to keep track of progress. From the trailhead it's a drop of 1200ft into a valley, then across the valley itself which is fairly wide and flat, then over the top of Tolovana Dome; ~1300ft up then ~1100ft down the other side. It's really quite a large hill to drag a sled over; we seem to not have realized that, though the sled takes the weight off our backs, our legs still have to do the same amount of work in getting it up a hill. So we were cavalier and overloaded the sled, and I won't make that mistake again. I do think the sled was the way to go, just don't pack any more than you would carry on your back. The sled isn't 'look how much more we can carry now!', it's 'this stuff we were going to carry anyway won't stress our shoulders/backs all day'.<br />
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Route finding is super easy in winter since people ride snow machines out there every day. And snowshoes are unnecessary unless you want to go off trail. I wore a pair of YakTrax on my regular hiking boots and was quite happy with it. Summer may require more attention to stay on trail. I do intend to head out there again in summer so I'll find out. And if you're putting in the effort to hoof it out there rather than ride a snow machine, I recommend staying longer than one night.<br />
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I actually resurrected an old Magellan Triton 400 GPS unit I bought years ago that accepts custom maps so I could load the trail map and USGS topo maps of the area: I noticed that since the Triton only had 50MB of internal storage, I had expanded it with an SD card back in the day - 250MB. Big storage. It still works fine anyway, so I do actually have a detailed tracklog with elevation profile, and I should even be able to overlay that into Google Earth or Maps, but I can't seem to get the tracklog off the Triton through the SD card, and I have no idea where the weird proprietary USB cable is, so that'll have to wait until I get a new cable.<br />
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Parts of the trail have <i>tons</i> of ptarmigan/grouse tracks wandering around, especially the area in the valley. If you pass through in the morning you'd probably have a good chance of plugging a couple for dinner. We only saw one when we walked through in mid-afternoon, and it flew away while my shotgun was still on the sled.<br />
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We stayed in the Cedar Cabin, which was pretty nice. And for soaking there are 3 tubs set up alongside the hot springs creek the constantly get hot water cycled through them, and it's the best thing after a long hike. The lowermost tub has a pretty nice view to the south, and the middle tub is made of wood which grows lots of algae, so... I recommend the lower tub out of the two. We didn't try the upper tub.<br />
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I'm not sure what else I should say about it. Have some pictures:<br />
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The group (minus myself) near the top of Tolovana Dome, with Minto Flats off in the distance. Left-right Stephanie, Drew, Haley:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/13756376014/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br />
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And facing back towards where we came from, with the car parked roughly where the ridgeline meets the sky just above Drew:<br />
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First moments after making it to the cabin and sitting down. Drew opens a bottle of gin, Haley puts together a hookah, Steph ties her hair back, and I take pictures. We all have our priorities :P<br />
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Then, everyone laid all their food on the table and we picked through it:<br />
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Cabin from the outside as we head down to the hot springs:<br />
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The middle tub:<br />
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Everyone out of focus in the lower tub. I'm a terrible photographer:<br />
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Last Thursday night we saw a UFO fly by at Poker Flat. Here's a clip of the all-sky video, you'll see it as a white cloud coming up from the west (left) horizon then disappearing.</div>
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Here's a 100% crop on the relevant part of the image:<br />
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It's definitely a cloud of some sort, you can watch it spread out and disperse. And if there was any doubt in your mind about that, here's a shot from a photographer on Pedro Dome (~10 miles south of Poker Flat) through a telephoto lens:<br />
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A wide angle shot from the same photographer, showing it's position in the sky:<br />
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And here's another shot from all the way over in Unalakleet, AK on the edge of the Bering Sea, ~650km west of here:<br />
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The one thing that jumps out to me instantly is they all have the object near the Andromeda Galaxy. Here's an annotated version of my cropped AASAP shot:<br />
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Okay, the Andromeda Galaxy in these photos is, um, maybe not all that obvious to most people even after it's been pointed out, but it's noticeable if you spend enough time looking at the sky and know the patterns. It's in all the photos except the telephoto shot.<br />
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Why is this relevant? Well, if even the camera 650km away is seeing it in roughly the same part of the sky, the object must be <i>very</i> far away. In orbit.<br />
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So I discussed this with a few rocket scientist colleagues and we decided the most likely answer is it's a fuel dump from a satellite or rocket. it's so high up that the dumped fuel is still in sunlight, that's why we can see it so well. And that's why it seems to follow such a constant path - no winds up there. We're just watching the cloud of fuel spread out and disperse.<br />
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Two days later, after the image was posted on <a href="http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=22&month=02&year=2014">Spaceweather.com</a>, a satellite tracker wrote in about a Delta 4 rocket carrying a new GPS satellite which was in that exact location in the sky at that time. And, further, the rocket had just 12 minutes earlier separated a stage, which entails dumping excess fuel.<br />
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Consider that a UFO turned into an IFO.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-53460930100796356262014-02-16T04:01:00.000-08:002014-02-16T04:01:14.459-08:00Auroral Forecasting: A Study GuideThere's two main things I look at when I'm trying to figure out what the aurora's about to do: Solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere. I guess that much is obvious since the whole show is caused by the interaction of those two things.<div>
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I'm sort of assuming you know the basic idea of how auroras work here: The Sun emits plasma which makes up the solar wind, when the solar wind collides with Earth's magnetosphere (if the solar wind is 'south' or 'negative') it strips magnetic field lines off the dayside of Earth and drapes them back behind the planet, where they 'reconnect' and accelerate plasma down the field lines to make aurorae. It still happens when the solar wind is north, BTW, just the geometry is different so where the plasma comes down to Earth is different.</div>
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So what you mostly care about is how much stuff is coming in on the solar wind, if the magnetic field geometry is right (southwards), and how much Earth's magnetosphere is being squished and stretched in response. I look at the readouts from two satellites to get this: ACE which sits about an hour upstream of Earth measuring the solar wind, and GOES-15 which is a geosynchronous satellite sitting at 135W longitude measuring (among other things) the shape of Earth's magnetosphere.</div>
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<a href="http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_2h.html">Here's a readout of the last two hours at ACE</a>. I like this two hour display but everyone else seems to like the longer ones. Whatever. Either way, you look for the speed or density to be high (the amount of stuff coming in) and for Bz to be negative (which means the field is southward, and the more southward the better). Since ACE is about an hour upstream, whatever you see happening at ACE will reach Earth an hour later.</div>
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<a href="http://and%20here%27s%20the%20swpc%20readout%20from%20goes/">And here's the readout from GOES</a>. This is measuring the component of Earth's magnetic field parallel to the dipole axis (at the location of the satellite... you'll see a daily up/down cycle which is the satellite going around the planet once a day). In simple terms, <b>when the satellite is near midnight</b> (marked 'M' on the plot), a high value means the field is not very compressed, and a low value means the field is compressed and storing magnetic energy. When that energy releases you see the value suddenly jump upwards, and that probably means some plasma has been accelerated down the field lines and you should expect to see the aurora brighten in roughly 10 or 15 minutes. The higher the jump up, the more energy released, and the more auroral activity you should expect. When the value drops below about 50 you should expect a release soon.</div>
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And oh, but they give it as a three day plot? How awkward is that when you're looking for features on the scale of minutes? <a href="http://optics.gi.alaska.edu/goes_hp_real.html">So this 3 hour plot is better</a>.</div>
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With that in mind, I put together something of a 'study guide' display. It's one thing to hear this stuff as theory, but it's much better to see it in practice. So I took the timelapse movie of the night's activity from AASAP and overlaid the last hour of ACE Bz data and the last 30 minutes of GOES Hp data. This is useful I think for anyone from a beginner to a seasoned vet because it lets you watch in a minute or two how these factors work together over a whole night. Here's the video from Feb 08, when we had a fairly short but quite spectacular display:</div>
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So if you watch, Bz was around zero or weakly south from the beginning, leading to some slow but steady buildup of magnetic energy in Earth's magnetosphere, reflected in the Hp number being down around 40nT. Around 06:00UT Bz turned more solidly south, and one hour later that led to a pretty strong buildup of magnetic energy as Hp went down to around 20nT. Bz jumped back sharply to the north around 07:00UT, and when that jump reached Earth an hour later it triggered the release of all that stored magnetic energy - GOES Hp jumped nearly 50nT in 10 minutes! That's a really large jump, and as expected 15 minutes later we see that westward traveling surge come in from the east (right) side of the image and the aurora gets very bright and active. Once the energy is used up the bright arcs fade away, leaving a large mass of drifting, pulsating diffuse aurora, which is pretty typical - this is the recovery phase of the substorm. Bz remains north for a few hours, and so isn't 'driving' the aurora very much and we just get some very weak diffuse stuff for a while, but around 12:00UT it turns south again. This late in the evening the GOES satellite is no longer well positioned, but an hour later we do see the aurora brighten up and get more active. This late in the evening Poker Flat is coming out of the 'auroral electrojet' where the brightest, most active displays happen, so instead of super bright arcs like earlier the display is dominated by large patches that drift around and pulsate. This continues for the remainder of the night as Bz remains southward.</div>
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So yeah. I'll be making more of these overlays when I get good example nights, and I hope people can learn by watching them. I chose this night as the debut because we had that really impressive 50nT jump in Hp. Here's what the GOES 3-day plot of that looked like:</div>
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And here's a 5 hour plot:</div>
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And, in case you were wondering what that looked like in person, here's a video from an intensified CCD video camera. It's black and white, and kind of noisy, but it can record the aurora in real time video, so that's something. I sped it up by about 4x to better see the dynamics of the westward traveling surge come in, and the arc movement. This should give a good idea as to how much it was actually moving around.</div>
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Sorry about the big black thing blocking part of the sky. The camera is sensitive enough that the Moon will ruin it, so that's the lawnmower battery we set next to the camera to block the moonlight. It's very high-tech.</div>
musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-71509848079072754512014-02-15T17:17:00.002-08:002014-02-15T17:23:20.502-08:00Rocket Science, Part 1<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="424" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/12281472586/player/0512c85356" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Well I mentioned in the last post that I would be on a rocket campaign. I've been waiting until we launched the rocket to make an update, but turns out we made it through the whole launch window without favorable conditions to launch. We actually had pretty good science conditions on several nights but the rocket was grounded due to high winds which left a significant probability of blowing out of our intended landing zone. So we're waiting for the Moon to not be so bright then we'll open another window.<br />
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The image above is one I took during a night waiting to launch, the three red streaks are weather balloons released to measure the winds. It's a composite of about 40 two minute exposures. I've been thinking about a better way to process star trails for a while, that would preserve the single image 'background' so that the aurora would be detailed and pretty (and, in other situations, would give you stationary foreground foliage even if it's windy) while still allowing the stars to trail over many hours. So you're looking at something like 1.5 hours (~40 exposures) of stars but only 2 minutes (1 exposure) of aurora. What I did was loaded all the images into IDL and calculated the standard deviation on each pixel. I picked a single image to use as a background, then I went through and picked the pixels with a large positive standard deviation, meaning something temporary and bright happened in that pixel (e.g. a star moved through), and replaced that pixel from the background image with the pixel from the brightest single image. The tricky part is I can do the statistics on a single color channel, so if I ignore the green channel the process is blind to the aurora movement. I used the red channel for this example to get the red flares on the weather balloons, but normally I'd probably use the blue channel since there can be significant auroral emissions in red. It still needs some work but I think it's a good start. Eventually I plan to make it into a simple GUI where people can use it without needing to know how to script.<br />
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Other than that, we did actually launch <i>a</i> rocket, a small experimental prototype designed by some of the folks here at UAF. Since it was a test it didn't need to launch into an aurora like our typical rockets, so it actually launched in daytime. Here's a shot I got of it going up with the 150mm Sigma lens and the D7000:<br />
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And here's a video I took with the new NEX F3 and a 50mm Nikon lens:<br />
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I don't know why Flickr isn't offering me the video embed code that it offers for every other video.<br />
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Here's a shot of it leaving the launch pad from a camera that was very close, taken by Jeff Rothman:<br />
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And <a href="http://zubenelgenubi.smugmug.com/SpacePhysics/Rocketry/RockettesLaunch09Feb2014/">click here for an album of it taking off then descending under parachute in the sunset</a>, taken by Mark Conde.<br />
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Our next launch window opens on the 24th of this month, so hopefully we'll get the big rocket off the ground without too much trouble this time.<br />
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In other news, I got rear-ended by a big truck while waiting for the car in front of me to turn, sandwiched between the two, and my car is probably totaled. So I'm shopping around and I think I'll get a 2014 Subaru Forester. I am disappointed with Subaru for not offering the ridiculously oversized moonroof on manual transmission models.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-26897766124410292342014-01-14T22:30:00.002-08:002014-01-14T22:31:16.135-08:00Toolik LakeI'm writing from my room at the Toolik Lake Field Station. The temperature here is basically the same it was in Fairbanks, which is a bit surprising, but it was already cold in Fairbanks so I'm not complaining that it's not any colder. This marks my... 6th?... trip above the Arctic Circle. And though the Sun did technically get above the horizon today, the mountains of the Brooks Range to the south were still higher, so I'm calling this as my first day with no sunrise. Here's a timelapse I shot of the mountains with the Sun passing down behind them, just out of view.<br />
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Around 6:00pm I was outside and noticed a couple of bright moondogs - <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/parhelia.htm">sundogs</a> except from the Moon instead of the Sun. I've seen them a few times before but it's still unusual enough to be interesting. So as I was looking, I tipped my head back to look up and noticed a <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/cza.htm">circumzenithal arc</a> up near zenith! Now <i>that's</i> new to me! I snapped a few pictures as I watched not only those two things, but also the beginnings of a <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/parcirc.htm">parhelic (parlunic?) circle</a>, an <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/column.htm">upper tangent arc</a>, and, after I looked at the picture on a computer, a <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/supinf.htm">supralateral arc</a>. Pretty rare things to see from the Moon. Here's a picture:<br />
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Work-wise, I had no trouble pulling out the EMCCD camera I'm bringing back to Fairbanks, which was my whole reason for coming up here. All packed up and ready to go:<br />
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I tried to film the drive up and do a better job than my previous attempt:</div>
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But I think I had some trouble with several things and I'm not sure what I have is worth working with. I may try to film some more on tomorrow's drive back south to Fairbanks, so we'll see. But that wraps up my tasks up here, next I suppose I'll be thinking about rocket launches and heading to Venetie, AK.<br />
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Until then.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-59961622343998485312014-01-11T05:12:00.002-08:002014-01-11T05:15:48.399-08:00Back in Alaska... back on the blog?<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="428" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/11880877646/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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That's the Prius after ~1.5 months of sitting unattended. I've been out of Alaska since early December but I'm back now. In that time I went to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco where I presented a poster on my time-of-flight calculation, which I'll probably explain in more detail here sometime while organizing my thoughts into a paper to be published. Then I spent the holidays in Arkansas.<br />
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I've been thinking for a while that I let this blog go for too long, and other people started pointing it out to me as well, so I'm going to try keeping up with it again. I built an automated all-sky aurora camera, you should <a href="http://allsky.gi.alaska.edu/">click here</a> to see what the sky looks like above Poker Flat RIGHT NOW!!!! Unless it's daytime because the camera only runs at nighttime. But there's a lot of nighttime in the interior this time of year, so your chances are pretty good. So much nighttime, in fact, that I've already worn out the shutter on one of the Nikon D610's used for the project - that's 180,847 photographs in ~1.5 months. Anyway, I intend to do a post or two here about how I set up the automation, so others who are interested can follow along.<br />
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Otherwise, I'm heading back up to Toolik Lake on Monday and returning to Fairbanks on Wednesday, weather permitting, so I'm sure I'll post something on that. Then we have a rocket launch window beginning at the end of this month, so I intend to do some <i>behind the scenes</i> rocket posts.<br />
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Until then.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-80385605210640782652013-12-20T11:20:00.000-08:002013-12-20T11:20:22.965-08:00Buy my stuff!Hello dear readers,<br />
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I've created a SmugMug website where you can easily order prints of my photos. There are currently about 100 of my best photos from the last two years available, and a select few older ones. More older ones are coming. If you want a print of something that isn't on there, let me know and I'll add it.<br />
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Unfortunately it costs $20 a month to keep the site up, so... please buy something :/ I've set the profit margin at 30%, so for every $10 you spend, $7 is actual printing cost and $3 goes into keeping the site available.<br />
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<a href="http://musubk.smugmug.com/">Click here to go browse</a>.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-9238875350440082732013-09-03T01:48:00.000-07:002013-09-03T01:48:40.409-07:00What settings should I use to take good pictures of the aurora?Common question, but just stop now because you're going about this all wrong. There's no magic setting for your camera that will work for any aurora. If you just want to set your camera to something that 'works' and leave it alone, go to another site. You can find plenty of sites that will tell you how to set your camera so you can get mediocre pictures of green fog in the sky. If you want to take good aurora pictures, you need to forget the idea that it's just some particular settings you can look up somewhere. The good news is what you need to do isn't really very hard.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/5617925876/" title="Night by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Night" height="425" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5270/5617925876_ccd30ff305_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Caveat: There are a lot of ways to get the same result. Don't get caught up in the method. This is how I do it, and I present it as a starting point you can build off of.<br />
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Step 1: Visualize. Always. Know what you want your picture to look like before you ever touch the camera. For aurorae, that probably means you want the brightest part of the lights to be slightly above a midtone (but that's not a given! Think about other things you could do...) So if you were to do something silly like try to meter off the aurora, you'd turn the exposure to one stop above the meter reading. But that would be silly because you don't want to be futzing about with a meter while the aurora is going, that's a distraction. The point here is that you should have an idea of how bright the aurora should look on your screen and histogram, not that you should focus on getting it exactly 1 stop above midtone or something like that.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/6193244761/" title="Jupiter rising by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Jupiter rising" height="425" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6151/6193244761_797c60b290_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Set your camera to full manual mode. There are three ways you can set the exposure: Aperture, shutter speed, and sensitivity (ISO). For aurorae you're probably just going to have the aperture as wide open as it'll go, or perhaps down a stop to help with sharpness, so you basically consider aperture as non-adjustable. Therefore you can only adjust the exposure via shutter speed or sensitivity.<br />
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Shutter speed should be matched to the time scale that the aurora is changing. Otherwise all the fine structure will blur out and you'll just get green fog. For a dynamic aurora, that might mean one second, whereas for quiet times that might be 30 seconds. Just take a picture and look at it on your preview screen. Do you see all the details or are they blurred out? If they're blurred out, use a faster shutter speed, if not, you might be able to use a slower shutter speed, which will allow you to use a lower sensitivity and get a less noisy picture. Set the shutter speed as slow as you can while still being able to see structure/detail in the aurora. A little noise is better than featureless green fog. And you can get away with running more noise reduction than you would with pictures of other things.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/6281256978/" title="Knotted by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Knotted" height="424" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6224/6281256978_d02a6f7de6_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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That leaves ISO. Check the histogram and the preview screen and turn up the sensitivity however much you need to mach your visualization from Step 1. The goal is to not have anything clipped off either side of the histogram, but on a dark night with no light pollution of course you're not going to be able to do that because the dark parts of the sky and ground will be off the left and the stars will be off the right, so just look to make sure you have a good portion of the exposure somewhere in the middle of the histogram. Compare that with the preview image. If it's not bright enough, increase the sensitivity; if it is, maybe you can get away with lower sensitivity (which means less noise). Eventually you'll get to the point where raising the ISO any more means unacceptable noise, and you'll be better off trying to increase the exposure in Photoshop or something. You'll only learn where the cutoff is from experience as you learn your camera's noise characteristics at different sensitivities.<br />
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FWIW, I always adjust all my settings in whole-stop increments because it's easier to think about, thus faster to respond to changing conditions and less 'in the way' of the creative process.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/4999065087/" title="Aurora and Iridium Flash by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Aurora and Iridium Flash" height="640" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4154/4999065087_ee4bbc0926_z.jpg" width="512" /></a><br />
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That's all you need to do to get the exposure right. Open the aperture as much as you can, set the shutter speed to match the auroral time scale, and raise the sensitivity until it's bright enough. Easy. Of course, that only gets you a good exposure, it doesn't guarantee the image will be <i>interesting</i>. There are a kajillion images out there of the horizon with the aurora above it, and maybe a mountain. Unless the aurora is doing something really unusual, you're going to have to do better than that. Finding a good foreground object is a good start. I'm still exploring how to actually take an interesting picture of the aurora, and I'm not yet sure how to do it. The images I've included here got it right, I think, for one reason or another.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-66777825302854290252013-08-28T15:55:00.000-07:002013-08-28T15:55:18.576-07:00I am in AlaskaFairbanks, specifically, and it's sooo pleasant here this time of year. I'm getting back into the groove of coming in to the GI each day to read and write. And of course I'm already planning weekend adventures. The drive up was uneventful, I took the 'direct' route, I70 -> I15 -> Alaska Highway, in order to save time. Definitely take the Cassiar Highway over the Alaska Highway if it's wilderness and adventure you want. I did timelapse the whole thing. Here are a couple of pictures from along the way:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9606012638/" title="Montana mountains by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Montana mountains" height="320" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7339/9606012638_96a463a779_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Mountain near Gates of the Mountains in Montana.</div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9619158392/" title="DSC_4386 by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_4386" height="360" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/9619158392_2f40d9c77d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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A somewhat boring image of the Kiskatinaw curved wooden bridge on the old Alaska Highway.</div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9619198252/" title="Canadian traffic jam by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Canadian traffic jam" height="320" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3832/9619198252_2e33f36572_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Canadian traffic jam.</div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9619153682/" title="DSC_4425 by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_4425" height="424" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2814/9619153682_47975c30db_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Signpost forest in Watson Lake.</div>
musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-79819606608366763242013-08-19T01:23:00.002-07:002013-08-19T01:24:49.472-07:00I am in Arkansas<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9522819108/" title="Milky pond by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Milky pond" height="360" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7318/9522819108_dfdf1c9678_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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I've been here since last Wednesday. Came to visit some people once more before I disappear to Alaska for four months. It's been a good time, though I must admit there are a few I'd like a little more time with, but c<i>'est la vie</i>. I plan to leave for AK on Tuesday or Wednesday and be in Fairbanks next Monday or Tuesday. We had a nice going away party last night, or as my friend Colby liked to call it, a 'go away' party, since we just had a going away party for me <i>before</i> the sprites campaign when no one expected me to come back afterward.<br />
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The sprites media frenzy has settled down but is not yet back to zero. I had over 70,000 views on my Flickr page in one day, which easily beats my previous record of 20,000. All in all I got around a quarter million views last week, and I'm still running several thousand per day. If I had charged a penny per view I'd be able to buy a D600 off it.<br />
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I imagine I'll have something interesting to post once I'm back on the move again. For now, here's a funnel web spider:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9522803280/" title="The Weaver by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="The Weaver" height="424" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5334/9522803280_cc0514fe03_z.jpg" width="640" /></a>musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-14293047475110290822013-08-14T19:51:00.003-07:002013-08-14T19:51:57.146-07:00Sprites 2013: Final Update<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9514675502/" title="13aug by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="13aug" height="265" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2837/9514675502_db1ff4cd88_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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We flew the final mission of the campaign on the night of 12-13 August. It was pretty much a bust: The storm which looked active died out right when we got off the ground. We only captured two sprites to the high speed cameras, neither of which was in the field of view of the dSLR. Geoff's camera, facing out the opposite side with a wider angle lens, caught three wimpy sprites, and that was it for dSLR shots - 3 sprites in 11,000 images. Not good at all. However, two of those three I actually managed to see with my naked eyes, so that's pretty cool. Here they are:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9511887997/" title="DSC_0170 by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_0170" height="360" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3690/9511887997_d5490665aa_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9511886333/" title="DSC_0387 by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_0387" height="360" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3699/9511886333_b7648e6ff6_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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I now realize that I saw one the other night when I was seeing all the jets, and just didn't recognize it as such, so that's three I've seen by naked eye. Not bad.<br />
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I guess that wraps up the campaign. Pretty anticlimactic. I was hoping to use what I'd learned so far to get a shot that eclipsed all the previous ones, but if there are no sprites when we're up there I can't do much. Sprites 2013 is at an end.musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159318897598166688.post-25176316646026549232013-08-13T04:10:00.000-07:002013-08-13T04:10:59.144-07:00Sprites 2013: Update #6<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9499855702/" title="12aug by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="12aug" height="263" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5487/9499855702_611da45a26_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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We flew again Sunday night / Monday morning, flight path above in green. The weather was marginal, but it went much better than expected. We got 9 or 10 sprites on the high speed, two of which were concurrent with the dSLR. This one - the best of the night - was on the final leg.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9499738056/" title="Sprites by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Sprites" height="424" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7290/9499738056_5c81f8f007_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Most of what we saw were C-sprites, short for 'Column sprites' or 'Columnar sprites' - it just refers to their shape as tall, single columns. Here's a really good example of C-sprites:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9499740224/" title="Sprites, with high speed video by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Sprites, with high speed video" height="424" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7366/9499740224_980e791395_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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And here are the same sprites in the high speed:<br />
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And here's another set, grouped in a ring called a crown:</div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9496939105/" title="Sprites, with high speed video by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Sprites, with high speed video" height="424" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5546/9496939105_6b3fbdc1f8_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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With high speed video:</div>
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There's these strange groups of columns stuck together at the end like a bundle of sticks:</div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/musubk/9496938627/" title="Sprites by musubk, on Flickr"><img alt="Sprites" height="424" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7315/9496938627_3fa3d6309f_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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A less impressive / more noisy image:</div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9497052457/" title="DSC_4010 by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_4010" height="360" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3809/9497052457_f765226339_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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And lastly, this sprite was pretty dim so I boosted the exposure pretty hard, and what popped out? </div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/99525103@N05/9499852788/" title="DSC_5316 by musubk_2, on Flickr"><img alt="DSC_5316" height="360" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7293/9499852788_f297445970_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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See the (faint!) green striations across the lower half of the image? <a href="http://www.atoptics.co.uk/highsky/airglow1.htm">Airglow</a>! Never expected to get that in a three-quarter second exposure. It's a chemiluminescence - emission of light by chemical reaction - effect common across the world, but very dim and unnoticed by virtually everyone. The primary color is the same 557nm green line from the aurora, which indicates we're looking at the emissions from excited atomic oxygen, up above 100km altitude.</div>
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For this flight Geoff brought his own camera (D5100) aboard on a freshly purchased GorillaPod, to mimic my setup from last time on the opposite side of the aircraft. So now we have coverage on the left (science) side with my D7000 and a 'normal' 35mm lens, and coverage on the right (non-science) side with the D5100 and a wider 24mm lens. On the previous flight I burned through my 64Gb memory card really surprisingly quickly, so we brought 3 new 64Gb cards aboard (thanks Ryan!), for a total of 2x64Gb + 1x32Gb memory per camera, and we switched to shooting JPG fine rather than RAW images. This was a mistake: Once the JPG compression crunches the dark noise, I can't subtract it back out again. Fortunately I recognized we had memory to burn on the last leg and I switched back to RAW for the final data run, which is when I captured the best sprites.</div>
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As I write this, we've actually just finished flying <i>another</i> mission, our last of this campaign. But since it's 5 in the morning and I have to meet in 6 hours to remove the cameras from the aircraft then drive 13 hours, I'm going to save that update for later - when I have time to go through the 11,000 pictures (seriously!) and look for good sprites. I will say that I finally saw a sprite naked-eye; two of them, both recorded on Geoff's camera.</div>
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Until then.</div>
musubkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06231556771036254903noreply@blogger.com11