Kevin Palmer

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  • After seeing only about 1 hour of clear skies over 5 nights, I was determined to catch a good aurora display on my last night in Iceland. The southern coast was showing the best weather forecast. So that is where I went, camping in the shadow of the glacier-capped Eyjafjallajökull volcano which was lit up by the moonlight. This is the same volcano that erupted 7 years ago with the giant ash cloud causing the biggest disruption to air travel since WWII. As soon as it got dark the northern lights came out and stayed the entire night. Compared to lower latitudes, the aurora up here is brighter and moves and changes so much faster. It will often appear anywhere in the sky, not just limited to the north.
    Aurora Gap
  • A partially eclipsed sun sets over the skyline of Saint Louis, Missouri. About 40 minutes before the sun set, it moved behind some thick clouds to the west. There was a small gap in between clouds, but it kept getting smaller. As the sun sank lower, the gap wasn't big enough to fit the entire disk of the sun. So I just shot the upper portion of the sun where the moon was. I had to time it just right, because this lasted only a few seconds. The sun looked like it would appear one more time, but it never did. <br />
To see the sun setting over the city skyline, I had to find a location a few miles northeast of the city, with enough height to see over the trees. The 100 foot high mound at Cahokia Mounds turned out to be the perfect place. 100 feet may not seem very high, but this mound was built entirely by hand over 1,000 years ago by an ancient Indian civilization. The base is as wide as the Great Pyramid of Giza and it took hundreds of years to build by hauling baskets of soil and clay. Dozens of mounds in the area are preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
    St. Louis Eclipse
  • The sunset over South Gap Lake wasn't very colorful. But converting the picture to black and white gave it a more dramatic look.
    Ripple Effect
  • After seeing only about 1 hour of clear skies over 5 nights, I was determined to catch a good aurora display on my last night in Iceland. The southern coast was showing the best weather forecast. So that is where I went, camping in the shadow of the glacier-capped Eyjafjallajökull volcano which was lit up by the moonlight. This is the same volcano that erupted 7 years ago with the giant ash cloud causing the biggest disruption to air travel since WWII. As soon as it got dark the northern lights came out and stayed the entire night. Compared to lower latitudes, the aurora up here is brighter and moves and changes so much faster. It will often appear anywhere in the sky, not just limited to the north. The aurora transformed into all kinds of interesting shapes, to me this shot looked like a surfing brontosaurus.
    Surfing Brontosaurus
  • At 1AM the aurora spread out and filled almost the entire sky above southern Iceland, while the moon illuminated the landscape.
    Green Skies at Night
  • My goal was to get an overview of the Teton Valley with the highest peaks lighting up at sunset. But despite the forecast for clear and sunny skies, I was dismayed when I got to the top and saw that the Tetons were hidden from view and the clouds were not going to lift. So I turned my attention to the west instead, looking towards Stouts Mountain and the Swan Valley. At first the light was flat there too, but then a gap in the clouds slowly began to open up. Sunbeams danced across the ridges and the light became better and better. Finally the sun came out for just a moment, and a pillar appeared above it caused by ice crystals suspended in the air. It wasn't the shot I had planned, but this short-lived sunset view was worth all the effort to snowshoe up this mountain.
    Big Hole Mountain Sunset
  • Early in the morning the northern horizon glowed green. This was caused by a geomagnetic storm from a recurring coronal hole on the sun. A coronal hole is an opening in the outer atmosphere of the sun that allows the high-speed solar wind to escape, which triggers the aurora when it impacts Earth’s magnetic field. Since the sun rotates on it’s axis every 27 days, this can be predicted in advance. I saw the aurora from this coronal hole in September, but last month it was too cloudy. I was determined to see it again this weekend even if it meant staying up all night dodging clouds (aurora hunting is an addiction). The infrared satellite showed a gap in the clouds moving in at 2AM, so I made some coffee and found a dark spot on the Wyoming/Montana state line to watch and wait. It wasn’t the best display I've seen, but I’ll take what I can get during solar minimum, and the meteor was a nice bonus.
    Parkman Pond Aurora - 32
  • This dawn marked the end of a very long night backpacking in Shenandoah National Park. Between chasing away pesky mice and having very strong winds topple my tent on me, I got very little sleep. I just hoped the sunrise would be worth it. It was. For about 30 minutes preceding sunrise I couldn't see more than 10 yards as Mary's Rock was trapped in a thick fog. But then the sun broke through. It was a struggle to keep myself and my tripod steady as the winds continued to gust. Clouds would race up the western slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But once they reached the eastern side, the clouds would slow down and hardly move at all because the winds were calmer. Often times I would compose a picture, set my exposure, and then the opportunity would be gone as conditions changed by the second. This was my favorite picture from the morning. Mary's Rock is a 3,514 foot tall mountain above Thornton Gap near Luray, Virginia.
    Between Heaven and Earth
  • In December the constellation Orion rises in the east immediately after sunset. While camping in Joshua Tree National Park, I picked a campsite that faced a boulder formation in that direction. When clouds moved in, I wasn’t sure I would get any pictures. But then a small gap appeared, leaving halos around the brighter stars. The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is visible in the center. It is one of the largest stars in the Milky Way, 1400 times the size of the sun. It's also a variable star, which means the brightness changes regularly. But in recent days it has been attracting attention because it’s currently dimmer than ever recorded before. Betelgeuse is at the end of its stellar life cycle and when it goes supernova its brightness in Earth's sky will rival that of the full moon. Since the star is 640 light years away, it may have already exploded centuries ago. But the likelihood of seeing a supernova anytime soon is still very small and they remain unpredictable.
    Boulders of Orion
  • Early in the morning the northern horizon glowed green. This was caused by a geomagnetic storm from a recurring coronal hole on the sun. A coronal hole is an opening in the outer atmosphere of the sun that allows the high-speed solar wind to escape, which triggers the aurora when it impacts Earth’s magnetic field. Since the sun rotates on it’s axis every 27 days, this can be predicted in advance. I saw the aurora from this coronal hole in September, but last month it was too cloudy. I was determined to see it again this weekend even if it meant staying up all night dodging clouds (aurora hunting is an addiction). The infrared satellite showed a gap in the clouds moving in at 2AM, so I made some coffee and found a dark spot on the Wyoming/Montana state line to watch and wait. It wasn’t the best display I've seen, but I’ll take what I can get during solar minimum, and the meteor was a nice bonus.
    Parkman Pond Aurora - 54
  • In My 2 hour time lapse I captured 1 bright Taurid meteor. There was another similar one right after this. But it somehow occurred in the 2 second gap in between pictures.
    Freefall
  • From comets, to lightning, northern lights, and meteors, I've amassed a collection of photos of one of my favorite local mountains at night. But I lacked a moonshot. The 7,877 foot peak named Steamboat Point is topped with dramatic cliffs of dolomite. You can't tell from this distance but the boulders below the cliff face are bigger than houses. Because of the position of the viewpoints, a full moon can only be seen rising over the mountain in the winter months. Unlike the sun, a full moon rises north of due east in the winter. In January it is called the Wolf Moon. While wolves do not currently live in the Bighorn Mountains, they have been seen before. The snow conditions at this elevation were highly variable with lots of bare ground as well as big snow drifts. After lining up my shot the moon failed to appear on time because a cloud hid the horizon. But after waiting and repositioning at the last minute, the moon briefly passed through a small gap in the clouds.
    Steamboat Moonrise
  • This morning in Joshua Tree National Park was unlike any other. Distant thunderstorms passed by throughout the night. Then around 5 am, it started raining. When the sun rose an hour later, it shined through a gap in the clouds which created a dramatic sight with vivid red and orange everywhere. To top it all off, this giant rainbow appeared. I know my photos did not do the scene justice. It was amazing how fast the light changed. One minute the sky was nearly colorless, then it exploded in color, and a few minutes later the display ended when the sun went behind a cloud. I felt blessed to see rain, considering I was only there for about 18 hours. Joshua Tree receives barely over 4 inches of rain in a normal year. When you consider that California is currently experiencing its worst drought ever recorded, this is a rare sight indeed.<br />
<br />
Date Taken: August 20, 2014
    Magical Morning
  • The full moon in April is called the Pink Moon. But the name has nothing to do with the color, it's just called that because it coincides with the blooming of a certain type of flower. The color of the moon can vary from red to orange to yellow, depending on the clarity of the atmosphere. While low on the horizon the shorter wavelengths of light get scattered. But as it rises higher the lunar surface shows it's true color. This was also the biggest full moon of the year because it was at it's closest point to Earth, known as perigee. But it only appeared 7% larger than average, hardly worth being called a supermoon. Conditions weren't looking very promising around here since the sky was about 90% cloudy. But I hiked up to this spot overlooking Moncreiffe Ridge anyway. The moon was only visible for a few minutes as it passed through a small gap in the clouds. The plane flying by didn't show up on any flight-tracking apps, so I'm guessing it was some type of military cargo plane.
    Moon Over Moncreiffe Ridge
  • Every tidal cycle brought something different. An endless stream of icebergs floated down the fjord, stranding themselves in this small bay when the tide turned.  Earlier that morning there were so many pieces of ice that I couldn’t even walk across this beach. But by nightfall most were carried away and only a few remained. It was my last night in Nuuk and the forecast called for 80% clouds. I just had to wait for that 20% gap. Geomagnetic activity wasn’t particularly high either, but this far north it doesn’t take much. Greenland is located under the auroral oval, where shows like this may happen any time the sky is clear and dark enough. When fringes of purple or pink line the swirls of aurora, it’s often associated with bright, rapid movement. A still image doesn't even begin to show all that's happening in the sky. Rays of light pulse inward from every direction, converging overhead at the zenith. It’s mesmerizing to watch and hard to look away from, though part of me wished I had a second camera with me to capture it all.
    Energetic Swirls