space – Wildlife In Nature

May 15, 2024 – The giant group of sunspots around AR3664 that caused a powerful geomagnetic storm in early May has now moved away from facing the Earth. A few days before it moved off on Friday, May 10th, beginning at 8:59 pm from my location in Northeastern Illinois, I received a notice from my phone app, which I use to monitor aurora activity, alerting me to auroras in my area. I stepped out of my backdoor, looked up, and saw vivid, moving curtains of reds and pinks. Calling out with excitement to my wife for her to hurry to the back to see the northern lights, I began moving quickly to get a tripod and camera set up in the backyard for an attempt to capture this rare event from this well-publicized powerful solar storm. For over an hour, red areas from the auroras would appear in the sky above me. Red auroras were also visible behind me, to the southeast. The backyard is surrounded by a few tall neighboring trees and powerlines, limiting my composition to a narrow view, so I mostly shot almost straight up, pointing a little north; that is why The Big Dipper in the constellation Ursa Major is in most of the images. As I would see the reddish glow from the auroras start to appear, I would get my camera on the area, click the remote shutter release, and do a 10-second exposure at 500 and 800 iso. I continued to take photos when the auroras would appear, which lasted until about 11:00, giving up around 11:30 when the sky finally went dark.

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) in the early morning hours of July 11th rising above the northeastern horizon at Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area just before the sun. On July 22nd Neowise will be at it closest approach to Earth at a distance of 64.3 million miles. The comet is now visible after sunset in the northwest and will be at about 10 degrees above the horizon by the 14th. If you miss this amazing comet it will be back in the neighborhood in about 6000 years. The comet was discovered March 27, 2020 by a NASA solar telescope.

July 11, 2020 – I had been waiting for some cloudless skies to possibly get a look and maybe a photo of this amazing comet that was discovered March 27, 2020 by a NASA solar telescope. Photos and testimonies from around the world were lighting up the internet feeding the excitement. Finely it looked like the early morning of July 11th would be my first chance to witness this spectacular event. I picked up my son Benjamin at 3:00 am to make the 28 mile drive to the dark skies on the Illinois Indiana boarder east of Kankakee. We arrived at Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area where Ben first spotted the comet in the northeast above the lake as was drove past the boat launch. The comet looked so amazing it was brightest at the tip, where the nucleus was pointing toward the horizon, looking like a long brush stroke of white paint on a dark canvas where the amazingly long tail stretched towards the heavens away from the sun that was below the horizon.

Tag: space

May 10th, 2024 Auroras

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)