Category: Skyscape

Views of the sky. Sunrise, sunset, clouds, and weather

Friday (02-August-2013) — Iceland

Gone to See Iceland 2013 Photography Safari with Mike Hagen. Day 4: Black Sand Beach Near Jökulsárlón Lagoon on the South East Coast.

Northern Atlantic Ocean Through Glacial Ice at the Beach near Jökulsárlón and Vatnajökull National Park in Southeastern Iceland. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 45 mm f/2.8 PC-E lens and 5 stop Singh-Ray neutral density filter (ISO 50, 45 mm, f/34, 8 sec).

Northern Atlantic Ocean Through Glacial Ice at the Beach near Jökulsárlón in Southeastern Iceland. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 45 mm f/2.8 PC-E lens and 5 stop Singh-Ray neutral density filter (ISO 50, 45 mm, f/34, 8 sec). (David J Mathre)
Northern Atlantic Ocean Through Glacial Ice at the Beach near Jökulsárlón in Southeastern Iceland. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 45 mm f/2.8 PC-E lens and 5 stop Singh-Ray neutral density filter (ISO 50, 45 mm, f/34, 8 sec). (David J Mathre)

Thursday (01-August-2013) — Iceland

Gone to See Iceland 2013 Photography Safari with Mike Hagen. Day 3: Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).

Unmanned Light On Top of Geirfuglasker Island. Geirfuglasker is a very small isolated island, part of the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off the southwest coast of Iceland. Historical note — last refuge of the Great Auk before they went extinct (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geirfuglasker). There must be a generator up there, but I don’t know how the light is serviced? Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 80-400 mm VRII lens (ISO 140, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec)

Unmanned Light On Top of Geirfuglasker Island. (David J Mathre)
Unmanned Light On Top of Geirfuglasker Island. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 80-400 mm VRII lens (ISO 140, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec) (David J Mathre)

Wednesday (12-June-2013) — Germany

Gone to See Europe. Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Day 47: Kiel Canal, Germany.

I was part of a team of six photographers that took ~30,000 images as the MV Explorer (Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage) transits the Kiel Canal in Germany.Howard Ignatius used the images to create this time-lapse video of the passage through the canal.

Tuesday (11-June-2013) — At Sea

Gone to See Europe. Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Day 46: Copenhagen, Denmark.

Sunset on the Baltic Sea. Are there offshore oil platforms in the Baltic Sea off Denmark? Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera FT1 adapter and 80-400 mm VRII lens (ISO 400, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec).

Sunset on the Baltic Sea. Are There Offshore Oil Platforms in the Baltic Sea Off Denmark? Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera FT1 adapter and 80-400 mm VRII lens (ISO 400, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage. (David J Mathre)
Sunset on the Baltic Sea. Are There Offshore Oil Platforms in the Baltic Sea Off Denmark? Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera FT1 adapter and 80-400 mm VRII lens (ISO 400, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). (David J Mathre)

Monday (10-June-2013) — At Sea

Gone to See Europe. Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Day 45: At Sea between Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Late night or early in the morning (hard to tell this far north when there isn’t much darkness at night) I looked out my cabin window on the MV Explorer and saw the electric blue Noctilucent clouds. I read about them before (http://www.spaceweather.com/), but had never seen them.  The clouds are ice crystals that are very high that you can only see for a short time when the sun is below the horizon. One theory is the crystals are nucleated when micro-meteors pass through the upper atmosphere. We were in the Baltic Sea traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen and the sun doesn’t set until very late I set up a camera in my cabin and took a set of 99 images that I made into this time-lapsed video (Nikon D4 camera, 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec)).