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.