sailing ship – The Amazing Sky

November 16, 2013August 19, 2016

The Green Flash – At Last!

At last, I enjoyed a successful attempt to capture the elusive green flash.

During three weeks at sea attempts almost every evening from the ship to sight the green flash always failed, as the Sun set behind low horizon cloud.

But this night, the Sun set into the ocean with a clear horizon. My location was a small public oceanside walkway on Bay Street near Bridgetown, Barbados. It was a great spot to watch the sunset, though our main purpose for stopping there was to pick up some fried chicken at the KFC just steps away!

But the imminent sunset under ideal conditions made it worthwhile sticking around to see if we (I was with two friends from Alberta) could sight the green flash.

We did! I shot a rapid fire sequence – the image above is one frame of many catching the last bit of the Sun remaining above the horizon and turning green.

The infamous green flash is a refraction effect caused by the atmosphere separating out the green light and lifting it higher so it’s the last thing you see as the Sun sets. Conditions aren’t always amenable to seeing the green flash – you need a clear horizon and you also need the atmosphere structured with warm layers near the sea creating a mirage effect.

For more details on the technical explanations see Andrew Young’s page at http://aty.sdsu.edu/

… and Les Cowley’s page at http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/gf1.htm

Andrew Young has a nice simulation at http://aty.sdsu.edu/explain/simulations/inf-mir/inf-mirSS4GF.html

This was the view moments before, with the lower edge of the setting Sun distorted by atmospheric refraction, a sign that you might see a green flash as the upper edge disappears.

I shot this image a few minutes earlier as a photogenic sailboat drifted into the scene. Red sails in the sunset!

I’m nearing the end of my stay in Barbados and my 4 weeks away from home. There are heavy snowfall warnings out for southern Alberta this weekend so I’m not anxious to return! But winter will be waiting for me next week.

November 10, 2013

Red Sky at Night … Sailor’s Delight

We saw many wonderful sunsets on our sail across the Atlantic, but this was one of the finest.

This was the sky two nights ago, on the evening of November 8, as the Sun, now below the horizon, lit up the clouds to the west. You can see a few people out in the netting of the bow sprit taking in the view.

Here was the view looking up into the square rigged sails on the foremast. “The sky is on fire” was the comment I heard from folks on deck.

Contributing to our theme of a rainbow eclipse trip, a red rainbow appeared to the east, lit by the light of the setting Sun. What a wonderful sky this was!

Indeed, one of the other astronomers on board tallied up the number of naked eye sky sights he had seen on the voyage. It was an impressive list, equalling what had previously taken him over 30 years of sky gazing to accumulate.

I’m writing this post from back on land, now in Barbados at a latitude of 13° north. However, now that I have high-speed connectivity I can get caught up with posts from the sea voyage, with a couple of more to come from at sea.

November 9, 2013

The Post-Eclipse Moon over the Atlantic

Following any total solar eclipse it’s traditional to look for the crescent Moon as it returns to the evening sky.

This was the view on November 6, three days after Sunday’s total solar eclipse when the waxing Moon was near Venus, with both high in our tropical sky as we finish our sail across the Atlantic. As I write this, we have just sighted the lights of Barbados off the port side as we round the north end of the island. It’s our first sighting of any other sign of civilization in two weeks, since we left the Canary Islands.

This view is from the next night, November 7, with the Moon higher and well above Venus, set amid the square rigged sails of the Star Flyer clipper ship.

It’s been a fabulous voyage across the Atlantic, with largely calm seas and beautiful weather on most days.

Tomorrow I start a week stay in Barbados.

October 18, 2013October 18, 2013

Moon Over Malaga – Two Weeks Until the Eclipse

Moon Over Malaga, Spain.

On the night of a penumbral eclipse, the Full Moon shines over the harbour on the Mediterranean at Malaga, Spain.

This was the view earlier tonight of the Full Moon from Spain, on the night of a partial penumbral eclipse.

The eclipse had not yet begun when I took this shot in the early evening. But even at mid eclipse at 1 a.m. local time, any darkening from the penumbral shadow would be very tough to photograph with anything but a very long telephoto or telescope, which I don’t have with me on this trip.

The penumbral eclipse of the Moon tonight is the complement of the total eclipse of the Sun in two weeks time. Lunar and solar eclipses usually occur in pairs. It is the total solar eclipse on November 3, half a lunar cycle from now, that is the attraction.

To see it, we leave Spain tomorrow and set sail across the Atlantic – not in this century-old German sailing ship, the Eye of the Wind – but in a modern ship the Star Flyer.