Here are two different views of the Sun. The first was taken with a 500mm telephoto lens and solar filter; numerous sunspots are visible.
The second image was taken with a 17mm wide-angle lens. Both an Oval Circumscribed Halo (visible as the thickened midsection) and 22° Halo are visible in this image.
The upside to the epic Winter we recently experienced is the tremendous amount of snow melt that filled many of the lakes across northern Arizona. Over the past several weeks we have visited several of these by car, mountain bike, running, and hiking.
This is one of my favorites. It shows Upper Lake Mary, a portion of the spillway, and Lower Lake Mary. It’s also nice that there is a nice mirror reflection of the trees in the water. This shot is only possible when both lakes are full.
Earlier we had visitied Marshall Lake. It’s not as full as it was a few years ago but considerably better than the past several years.
We did a trail run along the Arizona Trail on top of Anderson Mesa and visited Prime Lake and Vail Lake, both with lots of water.
Here are some additional images of Lake Mary taken on various days in April.
We rode our mountain bikes up Schultz Pass Road to Schultz Tank. It has been a small puddle the past two seasons but is once again full.
Finally, we did a short hike through the upper portions of Pumphouse Wash to this set of cascades.
The snow melt is done and we are now in our dry season. Lake levels and stream flows will diminish until the summer rainy season starts in July.
The aurora borealis that occurred Sunday night (23 April 2023) was an impressive event. The storm parameters* were all indicative of a major event so it was worth the effort to drive to a nearby dark (or at least reasonably dark) location and try to get some aurora photos.
I assumed that the aurora, if visible from northern Arizona, would be low on the northern horizon so I wanted a location without city lights to my north. The best location would have been the South Rim of Grand Canyon looking over the North Rim but clouds were plentiful in that region. So I headed south from Flagstaff and ended up on Anderson Mesa which has many good viewing locations.
Upon arrival I looked to the north but saw nothing with the unaided eye. A quick photo test, however, revealed that the aurora was in progress and visible through the clouds that were to the north. I took photos from about 2045 until 2330. The aurora was at its best from 2100 to 2145. It was much weaker and very faint after that time although still visible. At its peak, the auroral colors extended upwards 30–40 degrees in the sky!
I tried to see the aurora with the unaided eye but was never able to see it. I think that was because there was some light pollution from Flagstaff (yeah, it’s a Dark Sky city but it puts out more stray light with each passing year) and lights reflecting off the low clouds that were present to the north.
Time-lapse of aurora from 2053–2228 MST 23 April 2023.
But the camera had no difficulty capturing the subtle colors. I was shooting with a Nikon D750 and a Tamron 17–35mm wide angle lens set at 17mm, aperture was f/2.8, exposure was 15 seconds, and ISO 3200. I was using an intervalometer set to take a photo every minute. The camera was also set to do LENR (long exposure noise reduction) so that the actual time the camera was active was 30 seconds out of each minute. This gave me a chance to quickly review images after each shot was taken and that was useful. On the other hand, taking exposures without LENR and shooting, for example, every 15 seconds would have resulted in a much smoother time lapse. Good stuff to know for the next time we get an aurora event this far south!
*I was using SpaceweatherLive.com to monitor storm parameters.
The new Moon occurred a few days ago and just 23 hours later there was a thin (0.9% illuminated) crescent Moon visible in the evening twilight sky. I’ve been practicing with a recently acquired telephoto lens and this was another opportunity to have some fun with the lens.
Both of these images are crops from the original.
Venus and the Pleiades star cluster are prominent in the center of the image while Mercury is about to set in the low gap. The zodiacal light is also faintly visible.
Upper Lake Mary, Flagstaff, Arizona; 10 April 2023.
Next week the crescent Moon will join the group.