Roman White
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« on: January 07, 2009, 02:16:13 am » |
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After an observing session at 02:45EET I went home but forgot to take an eyepiece so returned outside... and that was certainly a luck!.. I accidently witnessed light pillars above the S horizon (source was 2 railroad lights 1.5km away). I have never seen this phenomena so distinctly visible and never photographed them before The sky was full of haze and possibly Cirrostratus P.S. I have just watched Spaceweather flash and I see that I'm not alone with my 'pillars'. Adam Tornasz from Staszów, Poland captures some light pillars tonight with the same weather conditions. http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Tomasz-Adam-s1_1231285153_fl.jpg
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« Last Edit: January 07, 2009, 02:18:41 am by Roman White »
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rjgjr
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« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2009, 02:35:12 am » |
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Beautiful capture Roman! Very interesting.
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Roman White
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2009, 03:12:40 am » |
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Thanks Richard P.S. I was outside at 05:40-06:00 EET. The number of light pillars that I have seen is over 30 and the quality... just amazing! I have many photos and fantastic impressions of seeing that phenomena. The first shot is a rubbish comparative to those. I will post it here in the afternoon.
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« Last Edit: January 07, 2009, 04:22:18 am by Roman White »
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Tyler
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« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2009, 04:33:13 am » |
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Really cool Roman I have never witnessed these! - submit them to spaceweather
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brianb
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« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2009, 08:39:24 am » |
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light pillars above the S horizon (source was 2 railroad lights 1.5km away). WTF? Complain about these, they're wasting energy & not illuminating anything to do with the railroad .... unless your railway company has gone into the space business. They are contributing sky glow even if it's not usually as obvious as this.
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John9929
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Posts: 1105
Maghaberry, N.Ireland.
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« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2009, 01:48:25 pm » |
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Great reports Roman, and well done catching those pillars.
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John9929.
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Roman White
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« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2009, 02:23:31 pm » |
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Thanks Tyler and John (source was 2 railroad lights 1.5km away). Complain about these, they're wasting energy & not illuminating anything to do with the railroad .... unless your railway company has gone into the space business. They are contributing sky glow even if it's not usually as obvious as this. Of course they're wasting energy - the most of that light is shining into the sky, as result they shine like a 1/2 Moon. Several years ago there were only two lights (directly there where I wrote above). But recently they switched on a few more in the same area 1.5km south of me and several lights ~1km east of me, so the light pollution increased greatly. The southern horizon (as on the photo) is the worst with light pollution.
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JohnC
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« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2009, 02:31:37 pm » |
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It's no good Roman, with all that ever increasing light pollution you'll have to move home.. Well spotted though.
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Roman White
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« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2009, 03:27:41 pm » |
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It's no good Roman, with all that ever increasing light pollution you'll have to move home.. Well spotted though. The decision is to drive some 30-40 km away from the city and observe in a rural area under better skies. But if I'd want to see really dark skies (black and grey areas in LP map) I will need to move for at least 700km away (there are still some unpolluted areas in S Ukraine e.g. Kerch peninsula). So the situation is bad indeed, it goes a bit better only when the sky is clear with no clouds/haze and the air is dry. Below are the shots which I captured today at 6AM (only some best of them) I saw a first extremely bright light pillar through the window, and when I went outside with a camera 2-3 minutes later, it had already disappeared. But the amount of freezing fog increased and very soon the light pillars started to form above the every street light in the neighbourhood. It was so exciting! I tried to capture two gentle green and very long light pillars (they looked similar to the first shot) but they disappeared while I set the 12sec timer. The situation changed so rapidly that during the 15sec exposure they could appear and disappear 2 or even 3 times in different directions. The most exciting pillars reached 30 o altitude and were very bright.
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« Last Edit: January 07, 2009, 03:35:09 pm by Roman White »
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martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
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Maghera, N. Ireland
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« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2009, 04:21:33 pm » |
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Roman, those are fantastic!. I enjoyed reading through your reports and studying the images of those rare light pillars. Your early morning observing paid off with such a prize catch!. I have always wanted to see this atmospheric phenomena for myself but have only got much lesser examples. You will have me out looking for them now. Thanks for sharing those unusual images!
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Roman White
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« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2009, 07:34:48 pm » |
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Thanks Martin. IMHO you will need to have severe frost and a nice amount of fog to see those...
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brianb
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« Reply #11 on: January 08, 2009, 09:11:11 pm » |
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you will need to have severe frost and a nice amount of fog to see those... I have a feeling the fog alone might be enough.
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martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
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Maghera, N. Ireland
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« Reply #12 on: January 08, 2009, 09:17:22 pm » |
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Ive had that the last few nights, or is it weeks?..it seems to be like that every day here but I haven't seen any pillars yet. Having said that I wasn't looking for them so I could very well have missed any which did form. You have made me more observant now There was incredible fog here all last night. The view from the country was awesome like a wall all around. I was hoping to get my very first images of a lunar fog bow but the fog was so dense that the Moon just looked like a white blur. Will try again tonight.
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Roman White
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« Reply #13 on: January 08, 2009, 09:33:10 pm » |
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I'm almost sure that the ice crystals are needed to form these phenomena.
I observe the light pillars very and very rare, but I saw many images from other people - and all of them were from northern countries e.g. Alaska, Finland, Russia Or how can you explain that on the single night when the -20's spread widely from Russia to Poland (and maybe even Germany), two reports followed - one from me, another from Poland (I wrote above)
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« Last Edit: January 08, 2009, 09:34:49 pm by Roman White »
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martinastro
Martin Mc Kenna
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« Reply #14 on: January 09, 2009, 04:31:22 pm » |
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Roman, congrats on getting your light pillar images on the Spaceweather sightings gallery
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