5/22/12 North Dakota Chase

Started out with an initial target of northern South Dakota. High cirrus clouds made us doubt our initial position and we drifted farther north to just east of Bismark, ND. My first time in the state! We waited in a chaser convergence as storms near Minot went tornadic. They were just too far out of our reach though. After a bit more patience, we watched a storm fire in SD near the border and split. The right mover fell apart while, surprisingly, the left mover held itself together. I have always had a thing for left movers, they just seem to fascinate me. We drifted southeast and intercepted the cell as it began to weaken. We were lucky enough to see a small wall cloud and RFD on this guy, rotating the wrong way! So cool! Another cell formed just to the north and we watched it go from birth to a full blown supercell! Super cool too! As that storm weakened, storms started firing all around and a heck of a lightning show ensued!

State Capital in Pierre, SD

Left mover from a distance!

Closer, it had a small RFD cut and baby wall cloud! (just above and right of the trees)

RFD cut with outflow

Left mover died...

Small cell fires north of the left mover.

Downdraft stengthens.

Strengthens even more.

Repositioned to get a view of the base to the south of the forward flank downdraft and got a view of this wall cloud.

It looked pretty good at one point!

Here is a timelapse of the base. If you look carefully you can see the rotation. Brighter frames are because of lightning during the image. These are 5" exposures.

Then it went outflow dominant and developed a shelf cloud.

Another view of the FFD

Begin lightning barrage!

Stacked image of many shots of the updraft.

Well, I hope you enjoyed! I will update this blog again tomorrow with a few pics from WY and high based storms I intercepted as well as the Venus transit across the sun from yesterday! Visit again!
Chip!

5/20/12 Solar Eclipse from Rapid City, SD

A partial solar eclipse occurred on Sunday and I went out and got photos of it with Dinosaur Hill in the foreground. I held a #11 welders lens in front of the camera's lens to get these pictures. I didn't look at the sun directly! Never look at it directly! Enjoy!

The sun the day before. Notice the three sunpots on it!

Light refractions with the welders lens being held in front of the camera lens.

Sun pillar! During the eclipse!

A prehistoric solar eclipse!

A reverse reflection by angling the glass!

Sunspot sneaking through the ending eclipse and the cloud cover.

And then the sun went behind the clouds...

And it set for the day...

What a cool experience! I haven't ever gotten photos of the sun before, let alone close ups and with an eclipse! I have to thank Pam's husband Don for giving me the welders glass to look at the sun. It made it enjoyable for all of us and proved to provide some cool effects when you turned it certain directions!

Visit again to see hopefully a good storm chase recap of tomorrows chase in SD/ND!

Chip

4/21/12 South Dakota Badlands/Lyrids

We took a trip out to the South Dakota Badlands to try to shoot the Lyrids. We were treated to some wildlife and a pretty sunset as well. Got to do a little light painting as well with a head lamp and the truck's headlights. Saw a good amount of Lyrids but they all seemed to sneak just out of sight of the camera.

The shadows gave a pretty cool effect on the landscape.

Had a close encounter with some big horn sheep!

 

The lone buffalo standing on a ridge at sunset! One of my favorite photos of all time!

Baby buffalo!

These two started fighting/playing for us. It was quite entertaining.

I walked up to the little ridge with a headlamp in my hand.

At the park entrance where we spent some time observing the Lyrids. A party bus drove by and lit up the frame.

We left around 2am and got back to Rapid around 330am. It was a long night but a blast! I had a ton of fun! Hoping to go out again soon, probably the next full moon as the landscape is just so stunning at night.

Chip