Four-Years Ago (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 and started taking pictures.(Nikon D4 camera, 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200 or 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec)).

Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)


Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)


Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)


One-Year Ago (24-July-2014) — At Sea

Gone to See Europe 2014. Day 54: Semester at Sea, Summer 2014 Semester Voyage. Baltic Sea Approaching Russia.

Time-Lapse Video of Noctilucent Clouds taken from the deck of the MV Explorer while traveling across the Baltic Sea. Images taken with a Nikon Df camera with a 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens and a Fuji XT1 camera with a 23 mm f/1.4 lens. Images processed with Capture One Pro, Photoshop CC, Premiere Pro CC, and After Effects CC. I used the warp filter in  After Effects to stabilize the images  taken on the deck of a moving ship.