Christmas Full Moon 2015

Clearing skies gave me the opportunity to film the full moon this Christmas season, one that doesn’t come come around very often and the next one won’t be until 2034 . Our stretch of clear weather also brought our coldest weather of the season with the temperature at –32F/-26C Christmas morning.


On the 24th, the sky was covered with a thin overcast layer and the moon was showing a 22 degree halo for most of the morning. At other times the moon was visible through thicker clouds that didn’t have the necessary ice crystals for the formation of halos or arcs. Christmas Day broke bright and clear with visibility greater than 25 miles, just what I needed for my project I had in mind for this day. I wanted to film the setting full moon once it descended low enough to be effected by the inversion layer that creates mirages. In order to be able to do this I needed a very clear horizon to the north as that is where the moon would be setting today.

While waiting for the moon to move around to the north I filmed it with various objects around the homestead. There was nice contrast with the moon and some of the willow bushes covered with thick frost and a nice moon beam shimmering across our lake ice.

The final moment arrived around 11AM when I started my project which lasted until 12:25PM. With the temperature holding at –31F, I was glad that the wind had dropped from yesterday’s 14 mph wind and a wind chill of –54F. My camera battery had a full charge when I started, but with the cold it was blinking and about to shut the camera down when I took my last photo of the series #115.

Start of the series of photos as the moon starts showing the inversion causing mirage effect. This second photo also has a small green flash on top and what looks like a orange one on the bottom as refraction is causing colors to separate along the edges of the moon. Time 11:41 AM

Time 11:49 AM moon is being distorted more on the bottom as it gets closer to the horizon. Notice another capture of a green flash.

Time 11:54 AM another green flash can be seen and the moon has been pulled apart on the bottom.

Time 11:59 AM in this shot the two halves look almost like mirror images as the moon looks to be touching the horizon.

Time 12:03 PM Here the mirage has taken on an almost rectangle shape with a small anvil and green flash on top.

 Time 12:16 PM now just two thin strips as last of moon mirage is about to disappear. This is where my battery gave up and since there wasn’t much more to see I didn’t put in a fresh one. Also even with my fur parka and other heavy gear I was chilled and ready to snuggle up the warm wood stove for a spell.




It was fun watching the moon go from a round shape to one that was constantly shifting and becoming more flattened or elongated. To add to the thrill, I was also able to see and catch on film several green flashes. A green flash is caused by refraction causing color separation when the moon’s disk is close to the horizon.



As a side note, I was actually filming the moon below the horizon for the last 20minutes or so as atmospheric refraction causes a vertical shift of about half a degree. Since the moon’s angular diameter is also half a degree the moon is really below the horizon when the moon’s disk appears to touch the horizon.

Snowmachine Trip

February was on the warm side for us, and that in turn led to many overcast/whiteout or stormy days.  On one of the better weather days,while on the cold side, I took advantage of the clear skies and sunshine for a trip.

It was a great feeling to be out in the sunshine after the dark days of deep winter. I traveled around 30 Km, enjoying the day, looking for caribou and foxes, which are the main large animals we have here this time of year.  I saw several small groups of caribou, from a single animal to a group of 7 cows, for a total of 30 head.  The sun was still low when I took a few pictures of one of the groups, and the snow drifts reflected an orange-red glow to the scene. 

Group of Caribou cows feeding with pale sunlight reflecting on the snow drifts.

           Caribou cow close-up.

Besides the caribou, I saw two white foxes and one very dark red fox.  The white foxes were too far away for pictures but I watched them through the binoculars as they went about their day hunting for lemming nests under the snow.  As an adaption to winters in permafrost country, lemmings and voles make grass nests above ground during the winter months.  This in turn provides a winter food source for the foxes by having the rodents where they can catch them more readily.  Also, white foxes that are not attached to a den or raising pups, move around in the summer looking for abundant food sources like water fowl nesting colonies.  When they find a area of abundant food, like waterfowl nests, they cache most of the eggs for later.  Most of the time it isn’t the fox that made the cache that finds the food, as that fox could be hundreds of miles away by winter time.   Over the millennium this has developed into a survival technique that helps the foxes make it through the lean winter and early spring months when food is hard to locate. 

When I saw the red fox, it was moving somewhat in my direction, so I drove over to a mound that was more in line with the fox's line of travel, and waited to see if it would come close enough for pictures.  With the cold temperatures (-25F/-32C), I kept my camera inside my fur parka that I was wearing.  That  way I don’t have to worry about it being out too long and having the battery frozen up when I'm ready to take a picture.  When the fox was about 200 meters from me, it realized I wasn’t just a dark spot on the mound and changed direction, moving away.  I started up the snowmachine and started following it, angling along its direction of travel.  It let me get close enough for a few pictures before it picked up speed and loped off.  

A dark red fox checking me out.

I then headed away from the fox, and after it watched me and was satisfied that I was indeed leaving, it turned and continued in the direction it had been going.  I’m sure it had a den off in that direction and will check it out later in the spring.  While I was looking for more caribou to film, I found what the red fox had been eating on, a dead yearling caribou.  It has been a hard winter for the caribou in this area as we have had two periods of melting and/or freezing rain.  This makes it harder for the caribou to dig through even a small amount of snow, and combined with all the blizzards and some cold temperatures, many of the yearlings have perished.

From there I worked my way home as the sun was starting to set and picture taking conditions were about over.

Sunshine Returns

January seems to have gotten away from me.  I lost interest in updating entries as my father's, Bud Helmericks, health worsened and he finally pasted away on the 27th of the month.  He was one of Arctic Alaska’s early explorers, author, and a Bush Pilot with over 27,000 hours of flight time, many of which were over uncharted territory.  His best known book is the “Last of the Bush Pilots”, a history of Alaska aviation. 

This picture was taken in May 1956 as he was getting ready to fly out over the Arctic Ocean, going as far as the North Pole area in his Cessna 170, the “Arctic Tern” 

 

Over the years, Dad’s birthday on January 18 has always been special; it coincided with the return of the sun after its winter retreat.   This year the the 18th was clear and cold with the temperature right at –40F/40C, and the sun was visible for just over an hour.  For the first few days the sun never gets more than a half of a degree above the horizon, just rolling along as it extends its travel east to west.  Here the sun is setting in the south and the cold temperatures are causing it to be effected by mirages. 

On January 19th I was able to get a picture of both a moon rise and sunset in the same photo. The moon still had three days to go to reach its first quarter, so is hard to see in the photo.  

The new moon is in the left edge while the sun is setting in the right hand side.  A chilly day with the temperature at Minus 42F.

Even with all the bright cold days, the Aurora activity has remained low so there hasn't been very many opportunities for filming.  On two of the best nights, the wind chill was around –65F so I didn’t spend too much time outside with the camera.  I will end this with a few shots from those cold days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aurora Borealis streaks and bands over head, with just a touch of red in the upper areas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A green band of Aurora that has a wing feather effect on one edge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cold weather created nice inversion layers, perfect conditions for great Superior Mirages. 

On some days the effect lasted for hours and it was like watching a kaleidoscope with all the changing shapes and colors.

Christmas Halo and a Blue Moon

The last week of December gave us great weather for sky viewing.  We had several clear and cold nights that led to the formation of frost-ice crystals in the sky. This made conditions perfect for seeing several optical formations in association with the moon, as the tiny ice crystals in the atmosphere created halos by refracting and reflecting light.

Solar activity has remained low and so far this winter there have been very few good aurora borealis viewing days in our area. However, just before Christmas there was a burst of solar energy from the sun and we were treated to a nice display early Christmas Day.  Besides the aurora we were treated to a halo and moon dogs as the moon was setting low in the western sky.  I was able to get a picture of both the moon halo and aurora together. As mentioned above, the tiny ice crystals in the atmosphere create halos by refracting and reflecting light.

 

Aurora Borealis mixed in with a halo and moon dogs.

As the moon became full, conditions on the last two days of December were ideal for several types of optical phenomena involving the moon. One involved what is referred to as a Blue Moon, which is a second full moon in a single month. On the evening of the 30th, I also filmed a complex halo display.  There was a 22 degree halo around the moon with a parhelic circle running parallel to the halo, and where they intersected, moon dogs or parselena appeared. The 22 degree halo is  formed when moonlight passes through pencil-shaped ice crystals floating in freezing clouds. When parhelia and moon dogs are present you know that there is a mixture of plate-shaped ice crystals that are reflecting light to create these, and the pencil-shaped ones that form the halo. For more on ice crystals see: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halosim.htm

Complex halo with moon dogs and parhelic circle. Bright star upper center is Mars.

Moon with Halo over our home.

Not pictured in the first photo was a fleeting but bright circumzenithal arc above the halo.  It wasn’t attached to the halo and was right overhead.  They are formed by the same crystal formation as the parhelia’s plate-shaped ones. Circumzenithal arcs are some of the brightest of the ice crystal phenomena due to the refraction through the ice crystals.  They can rival a rainbow in color, but unlike a rainbow they are seen on the same side as the sun or moon.  It resembles an upside down rainbow but the red is on the outside.

  

Circumzenithal Arc is the most beautiful of all the halos.

In the early hours of December 31, I took a picture of our homestead in the bright moon light and a small patch of cloud iridescence can be seen in the thin cloud next to the moon.

 

Moon light showing some iridescence in the clouds.

The last optical phenomena seen during this time was a diffraction coronae around the full blue moon on New Year’s eve.  The moon was shinning through a thin layer of cloud and a series of concentric colored rings formed around it.  You have the colorless center aureole, then a bluish and reddish ring.

Coronae around the moon sitting over Drilling Rig.

Moon with coronae framed by caribou antlers.

All in all it was a great way to end 2009.  Here is best wishes to all for the coming New Year and keep looking up.

2009 Blue Moon over Colville Alaska.

Last Sunset of 2009

Today (October 22) marked a mile stone for us, as it was the last day of the sun above the horizon in 2009.  It will be another 58 days weather permitting, before we see the sun on January 19, 2010 at 12:30 PM.  Officially it will remain up for a total of 1 hour and 8 minutes, but the cold air of winter can make it do strange things.  I have seen the sun come up and set three times  on the day before it was due back, due to mirage and inversion layers effecting the view.  When it does come back it just rolls along the horizon for several days before it gets much altitude.  This can make viewing difficult as it doesn’t take much of a cloud layer along the horizon to obscure the sun. Below are a couple shots taken two days ago of the sun low in the sky.  I was busy with a conference call today and missed the last view of the sun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We still get several hours of twilight, even on the shortest day of the year in December.  Sometimes at night it is even brighter than during the day with a bright moon, and /or Northern Lights reflecting brightly off the snow.  The months ahead make for good star viewing and Aurora watching, if one doesn’t have to bad of a wind chill to put up with.  I look forward to the months ahead hoping that clear nights coincide with lots of Aurora activity.

Here are a few Aurora Borealis Pictures taken over the past week or so. Most night they were just a faint green or grayish green. 

 

This display was just stating to pick up some reds.

Cloud streaks produced a neat display even though the Aurora weren’t very bright.

For about 20 minutes one night we had a really nice bright display.  Looking off to the west, instrument shelter in the foreground.

Snow Buntings

The cold weather continues with a strong winds and snow out of the west.  Temperatures have fallen and now stay below freezing through out the day, with the low around +12F the past two nights.   With three inches of fresh snow, all the melted-out tundra ridges from the first of the month are now bright white. 

I haven’t seen a glaucous gull since the 8th, but the white-fronted geese keep making a swing around the area looking for an inviting spot.  They don’t stay long and are soon headed back to the east or farther up river where there is more melt water, as all the overflow around here has frozen over hard again.  We did have a flock of around 60 willow ptarmigan spend the night bedded down by the house. It was the first large flock seen this spring and most were males with various amounts of brown in their heads and necks. 

Teena made a trip to Deadhorse yesterday for mail and supplies and she saw several hundred White-fronted Geese, 50 Canada Geese, 20 Glaucous Gulls, 60 Willow Ptarmigan, a few Snow Buntings along the gravel road system, and the high light of the day for her a Rough-legged Hawk migrating east.  Many of the geese including the Canada’s were seen where the road crosses the Kupurak River, which was running in places from melt in the foothills.

The snowy weather hasn’t slowed our snow buntings down. They are busy defending their territories from other males and displaying for their females.  The cold has stopped any nest building activity, but that will resume with the first warm sunny day.

Back To Winter?

The week started like we were going to have a early breakup with the river starting to run spring flood waters.  A few white-fronted geese and glaucous gulls arrived to start checking out areas for nesting sites, both were early but that seemed to be the way spring was going.

But from the looks of the snow blowing past the window today, winter wasn’t quite ready to release it’s grip here in the Arctic.  The open shore leads that had waves rippling on the surface two days ago are frozen once again, and snow horses are playing over the surface creating small snow drifts on the smooth ice.

The geese and gulls have moved off, perhaps around the gravel road system to the east where they might  find some melt water. The snow buntings haven’t slowed down as they are busy chasing each other defending their territories.   The forecast holds more cold and snow so the geese may have rough going for a while.

 

Here is a picture of one of the Black Oystercatcher I saw in Adak earlier in the Month, a first for me.  It took several tries to locate a pair of oystercatchers and for a while I thought I wasn’t going to to see one.  Then after watching a distant pair in Finger Bay, another pair found me the next day while I was bird watching from the town breakwater.  They circled around me calling, then landed to feed not far away in the seaweed and barnacle rocks at the edge of the breakwater. I spent over a hour filming and  watching them feed before they flew off on across the bay.

Bright Sunny Day

The day dawned bright and clear so we got to see the sun for several hours. Since returning on the 18th of the month it is now up for 4.5 hours.
While doing wood chores a raven flew by, and then circled back to see if I was doing anything that might lead to a sorch of food. In the cold frosty air (-34F) the bird was covered with frost on the face and some of the breast feathers. This is the first bird of the year for me!

Jim