Bringing the halo blog back to life...

It's going to be hard job...137 posts and over 400 images thats needs to be re-uploaded.

Update (16.12.2013): Around 40 done, 100 to go.


Somebody asked for Registax tutorial I created years ago...I reuploaded this as well. It's available here.
 

22 degree halo

15.7.2011

 

Not a very bright halo that last all day long. Thanks to fast moving halo clouds stacking 47 frames over 6 minutes period makes all the difference though.

Later in the evening a nice CZA arc and strong low sun 22° halo. At this time I was about to roll the wheels to find a great shooting spot but then I realized it equailizes chasing a ghost as the low cloud front was about to approach to stay for the rest of the evening and through the night.

Looking back at spring optics in images

Images taken between March 2011 and May 2011.

13.3.2011

 

81 image stack.

 

18.3.2011

101 image stack.

 

 

23.3.2011

53 image stack.

 

27.3.2011

 

 

14.4.2011

Looking back at winter in images

Images taken between November 2010 and February 2011.
30.11.2010

 

13.12.2010

 

 

18.12.2010

 

30.1.2011

 

06.2.2011

 

10.2.2011

 

 

11.2.2011

 

 

15.2.2011

 

 

A faint CZA in diamond dust.

 

16.2.2011

A middle Lowitz arc crossing the parhelia.

 

Here's a beautiful CZA and supralatreal arc.

 

59 image stack reveals 22° halo, parhelias and CZA.

 

130 image stack over 25 minutes period. Notice the lack of column crystals, mostly plates.

 

17.2.2011

In this night the cold took my nose and toes. It was rather cold night at -25°C plus the windchill which added an extra -5°.

 

Registax 6 released !

The final version is put on hold...but the initial one is available to download.
I'm eager to try it on my favorite stacks and will let you know very very soon how it turned out !

Spring halo display

17.4.2011

A really nice springtime halo. Those who are not in front of office monitors may notice a faint 9° halo as well.
44 frames. A sample of single frame is available here.

Halo statistics in 2010

As always observations were done mainly in Keila (Estonia) and its surroundings.

---
Nii nagu alati, enamus vaatlusi tehtud Keila ning Harjumaa piirkonnas.

 

 

2009 observations page

2008 observations page

Autumn Solar Halos

08.11.2010

123 image stack.

 

100 image stack.

A single frame.

Fogbow spectacular

02.10.2010

Temperature 8°C, relative humidity 99% and 0.0m/s wind at 08.00 UTC+2 in the morning.

Without the cloud disturbance it was hard not to notice these huge bows. A few hundred meters away on the roadside there was another fellow skywatcher - but wait, after a closer inspection I realized that he was facing towards sun and did not care about the fogbow. Seems that he counted hundreds of migrating birds (Canada Goose/Branta canadensis) who were resting on the field.

 

This is another fogbow that shows the secondary fogbow fairly well. Additional processing in Photosop brings out even the secondary supernumerary fogbow !

The latter is extreme rarity but can be produced in dark with bright searchlamp (links 1 2).

 

It's funny that I always end up in gravel-pit when hunting fogbows.

Autumn halo display

08.10.2010

 

Here's a random shot during the event, not very impressive though, rest of the shots were more or less the same but sufficient enough to stack.

Forgot to mention that the image above consists of 113 frames stacked together with help of a Registax software.
 

Bright 22 halo

07.6.2010 (17:18 - 17:38 GMT +2, 42 frames)

 

For this simulation the main contributor are randomly oriented short-shaped column crystals. Minimum amount of plates were used for parhelias and for weak CZA. Long-shaped columns were used for weak tangent arc and for upper suncave Parry arc, the latter shows up faintly on the stacked photograph.
It's worth to mention that in case when randomly oriented long-shaped columns were used the 22 halo bocame very diffuse so shorter columns were needed. The software used for simulating this display is Halopoint 2.0 by Jukka Ruoskanen.

Single frame vs. 42 frames stack comparison

 

This was one amazing summer display, the sun was low but halo is still full.

 

47 image stack.

23 parhelia

16.8.2010

90 image stack.

 

Solid 23 parhelia

24.6.2010

37 image stack.

Halo display

17.6.2010

51 image stack.

19 image stack.

17 image stack.

Can you spot the infralatereal arc ?