Every morning when I first get up, I let the dog out, make a latte and sit down at my computer. On a typical night there are 4 computers and 4 cameras running all night. This time of year there is about 12 hours of darkness. All of the cameras capture an image about every 30 seconds. Quick math… That is 1,440 images per cam per night. That translates to 5,760 images for all cams combined every night. It would take forever to look at each individual image. That’s where time lapse comes in handy. I make a slow time lapse from each cam at 10 frames per second. This allows me to see each image rapidly. I can then back up easily to find anything interesting because there is a date/time stamp on each image. I have to watch carefully for meteors and fireballs as they only appear for 1/10th of a second. Conversely, events like Northern Lights, Noctilucent Clouds, Light Pillars, Comets, etc. are actually easier to see when moving in a time lapse.
Virtually every night there is something interesting to
see. I have to make a judgement opinion
of what is “post worthy”. Right now I
actively post on Twitter (X), Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Occasionally I post here on this “blog” for
those who don’t have social media.
I thought I would put together a review of the last couple
of nights of captures to share what I see.
First, an aircraft flying over can make an interesting pic. A lot of the high flying planes are mistakenly identified as
meteors. After years of doing this I can
easily tell the difference. Here is an
interesting one from last night. (Not
Post Worthy).
This morning we had a small meteor that I didn’t post.
Yesterday we had a fireball that I did post. The difference between a fireball and meteor is very subjective. They are rated by magnitude. The smaller the number the brighter they are. Typically the minimum magnitude for a fireball is -4 which is approximately the brightness of Venus. Here is a fireball from the night before last.
I reported this fireball to the American Meteor Society. https://www.amsmeteors.org/ They collect all these reports and provide very interesting information. For example, there were 5 reports of this fireball and they were able to triangulate the path. It was visible from Nanaimo to Seattle. Here is their graphic.
We also had a good example of light pillars last night. These are ice crystals that are refracting light from a source on the ground. These are NOT Northern Lights. Here is the example from last night:
All of this happened in the last couple of nights.
We see Northern Lights frequently on my cams. Here is a good show from February 27, 2023
Noctilucent Clouds are visible around the Summer Solstice,
June through July. Here is a nice one from 2020.
Lightning storms are always best at night because of the slow shutter speed. The more the shutter is open, the better chance of capturing a strike. I have only captured one strike in daylight. Here is a nice storm from 2019.
Of course there are always the mysteries that are a lot of fun. This one was good. It was solved…. Or was it…. Queue the Twilight Zone theme song….
I have only touched on a few of the bigger night topics. I have left out a lot of events like Comets, Moonrises, Night Virga, MoonBows, house fires on Whidbey, etc. A lot of interesting stuff happens at night and thankfully my cams run unattended. I do my best work when I'm sound asleep.... 😁
