Lightning Safety Awareness Week 2022
Posted by ZTResearch in Lightning, Lightning Safety, Lightning Science on 06/19/2022
Lightning Safety Awareness Week runs from Sunday, June 19th through Saturday, June 25th. There are many sites to learn about lightning safety and myths related to lightning. If you wish to learn more about the physics and behavior of lightning you can read through my education section.
Lunar Eclipse, 2022-05-15
Posted by ZTResearch in Astrophotography, Timelapse on 05/27/2022
Got the opportunity to witness the total lunar eclipse on the night of May 15th, 2022 from Montauk, New York. It had been rather foggy the preceding three days, and with no change in weather pattern forecasted, I thought my chances of seeing it were extremely low. I was thrilled when a brief period of thinning fog allowed for a beautiful lunar spectacle. I had positioned myself at the Montauk Lighthouse on the very eastern end of Long Island, New York. Alone with the lighthouse, the scene that unfolded was truly surreal as the light from the rotating beacon tried to penetrate the opaque fog created rotating beams of light. The moon periodically revealed its moody glow adding to the “mistical” scene accompanied by a symphony of waves crashing on the nearby rocks. My only companions were unknown critters that occasionally dashed across the grass field surrounding the lighthouse. It was something I will never forget.
Below are some selected images and video from this amazing night.
Back in Rapid City, South Dakota, my low-light surveillance cameras captured the lunar eclipse as the skies were clear. Below is a timelapse showing the eclipse’s moonlight transition which started shortly after moonrise.
Lightning Highlights from 2021
This year I was able to capture upward lightning flashes from a newly installed wind turbine complex northeast of Newell, South Dakota as well as lightning associated with the monsoon season in the Colorado Plateau. There were also some spectacular lightning displays in the my home area in the Northern High Plains. Below are some of the images captured.
Standard- and high-speed video highlights from the 2021 storm season are now available on my YouTube channel.
Geminid Meteor Shower Highlights, 2021
Posted by ZTResearch in Meteor on 01/11/2022
The Geminid Meteor Shower peaked on December 13th and both our Global Meteor Network cameras were able to record data. Below are the video segments created by each of the cameras for the two nights surrounding the peak. In the second video captured from Chamberlain, South Dakota. The radiant in Gemini translates across the field of view during some of the peak activity.
Partial Lunar Eclipse, 2021-11-19
Posted by ZTResearch in Astrophotography on 11/22/2021
In the early morning hours of November 19th, 2021, the fully illuminated moon passed through the Earth’s shadow. The moon did not pass entirely into the shadow reaching 97% percent coverage at max eclipse. Hence, this was a partial lunar eclipse. The fact that the moon was near apogee, the farthest distance from Earth in its elliptical orbit, meant that the moon was at its smallest as viewed from Earth. This also meant that the time it took to traverse the shadow was maximized.
At moonrise, high clouds blocked the moon, and it appeared the after midnight eclipse could be obscured. However, clouds cleared for the most part during the 12:19 – 03:47 am eclipse timeframe. I used a Paramount MYT telescope mount with a Nikon Z6 camera and Sigma 600mm lens to record the event. I also used a 1.4x teleconverter so the focal length was 840mm. I chose to only record UHD video and occasionally ventured outside in the subfreezing air to look at the spectacle with my own eyes. It was an amazing sight with Orion not far away.
Below is a timelapse video from the video recording. I also made a timelapse of my four low-light surveillance cameras to show how the light dimmed during the eclipse. The third video is the complete real-time recording which I have placed in my “Simply Being There” playlist. If you want to just watch the event as it took place, you can sit back an do so.
I am grateful that the clouds cleared out, and that I was able to see this wonderful wonderful event. Enjoy
Global Meteor Network Observations
Posted by ZTResearch in Astrophotography, Meteor on 08/20/2021
Earlier this year, I joined the Global Meteor Network (GMN) in making scientific meteor observations using low light camera systems. I purchased two GMN camera systems and now manage these cameras which are located in Rapid City and Chamberlain, South Dakota. The cameras have overlapping fields of view which allows for orbit calculations for simultaneous captures of the same meteor. A dedicated website provides the latest overnight observations from all the cameras located around the world.
Last week, the Perseid meteor shower peaked, and South Dakota experienced clear skies for most of the nights in which Perseid meteor activity was clear visible. Based on radar and camera observations, there was an unexpected outburst from the Perseids between 0700-0900 UTC on August 14th. This was after the traditionally observed peak. Skies were clear in western South Dakota and the GMN cameras, along with my low light surveillance cameras at my observatory in Rapid City recorded this outburst.
I have posted highlights from the outburst on YouTube as well as the timelapse recordings from the GMN cameras.
Lightning Highlights from 2020
Posted by ZTResearch in Bipolar/Bidirectional Leader Development, high-speed camera observations, Lightning, Negative Leaders, Positive Leaders, Recoil Leaders, Spider Lightning, Timelapse on 01/26/2021
For the 2020 storm season, I remained in Rapid City, South Dakota. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I chose to document storms either alone or with my daughter while isolating from the general public. Most of my high-speed cameras are currently in Johannesburg, South Africa as part of an ongoing research project, so this year I focused on the artistic side of lightning and storms. I did utilize a Phantom M321 camera which is a color camera capable of recording at 1920×1080 at 1,500 images per second along with digital still, 4K video cameras and various GoPro cameras recording timelapse or at 240 images per second. My goal was to focus on sites that are scenic and iconic South Dakota landmarks such as Bear Butte and the Badlands.
Overall, it was a rather active year with storms displaying typical behavior for the northern High Plains. This means that storms produced a large number of positive cloud-to-ground flashes which is common here. This is especially true when targeting the trailing part of organized mesoscale convective systems. I only documented one upward lightning flash from the towers in Rapid City, however, the towers were not my primary focus.
Below is a summary video showcasing the lightning that my daughter and I captured. There were some beautiful flashes captured with the high-speed camera and some stunning sunsets and scenery…a positive outcome from a rather challenging and concerning year for all of us. I hope that all who read this stay safe and healthy both physically and mentally. It is also my hope that by next summer, we are in a much better situation.
“Optical Observations of Needles in Upward Lightning Flashes” published in Nature Scientific Reports
Posted by ZTResearch in Uncategorized on 10/16/2020
Our latest peer-reviewed journal paper “Optical Observations of Needles in Upward Lightning Flashes” was published on 15 Oct 2020. It is open access and available for download at the link below.
The paper describes how attempted branches on positive leader channels can pulse well after the leader tip continues propagating away. These pulsing features are defined as “needles” and in rare cases, they can develop into a negative leader branch.
The online version of the paper which includes supplementary video can be found at this link.
Saba, M.M.F., A. R. de Paiva, L. C. Concollato, T. A. Warner and C. Schumann (2020), Optical observation of needles in upward lightning flashes. Sci Rep 10, 17460 (2020) doi:10.1038/s41598-020-74597-6
Sunset lightning in the South Dakota Badlands
Posted by ZTResearch in Bipolar/Bidirectional Leader Development, high-speed camera observations, Lightning, Negative Leaders, Positive Leaders, Recoil Leaders, Spider Lightning on 05/29/2020
On the evening of Saturday, 23 May 2020 a strong linear storm passed over the South Dakota Badlands. As the sun began to set, the stunning orange and pink light illuminated the backside of the storm and its trailing stratiform precipitation area. As is common with mesoscale convective systems, this backside region produced numerous horizontally extensive lightning flashes many of which contained positive cloud-to-ground return strokes. Also common with these types of flashes, negative leaders raced through the layered positive charge regions above cloud base, while trailing positive leaders propagated below cloud base in trail of the negative leaders presumably through negative screening layer charge or negatively charge rain. This spectacular “spider” lightning is my personal favorite and this spectacle was one I will not soon forget. My daughter and I filmed the flashes with every camera we had available and the video below shows our best captures. Recordings were made from 30 to 1,500 images per second.