The Weather

Bob - my son was driving back from YYJ last night at moon rise and he proclaimed it even more "stellar" than Sunday. This morning at 6:00AM I could still see brilliantly full moon and stars from our back deck. It's times like these that I wish we were on Nursery or Christmas Hill - I'm definitely an open sky / sunset guy, and our back yard is too sheltered for that.
 
It's a lovely day. ...Chris. ...Autumn leaves ... multicolored.

APOD: 2015 September 29 - Supermoon Total Lunar Eclipse and Lightning Storm

_______

Bonus: My Sub's schematics -> https://production.diyaudio.com/community/index.php?POSTs
That might help John Pang (from Pangco Electronic Services in Victoria).
And the resistor that I mentioned to him was indeed burnt out...so he needed the right value to replace it. ...And I hope that's all it is...I believe so because everything else looks brand new (no trace of black burn, only that small resistor near the power transistor). I'll let you know...
 
I took two road trips to Florida this year. Both times we spent some time on Captiva Island in the gulf west of Ft.Myers.

I have this habit that frustrates my wife. When a late night summer rain storm hits, I get up and go for a walk with a camera. I take pictures, lots of pictures.


I used to have an early digital Nikon Coolpix 880 that would take perfect lighting pictures, but one of the grandkids killed it years ago. Since then I have given up on Nikon since nothing I have tried takes good pictures. I have a 10 year old Sony DSC-F828 that takes great pictures, but can not be replaced, so it doesn't go for a walk in a thunderstorm. Ditto the Canon DSLR.

I got a cheapie Panasonic pocket camera, and presto, I was in business again. am surprised by the picture quality, and it is cheap and small enough to go with me where the other cameras can't, yet blows away any phone camera.



So on the first Captiva trip during the July 4th week, I went out to the beach during a thunderstorm, and pointed the camera west toward Mexico. No lunar eclipse, in fact no moon or stars visible at all, just soggy darkness.

The next morning I went back out for a walk, looking north and east.

Note that these images have all been compressed to avoid wasting forum space and fit the file requirements. The originals look awesome on a 2K monitor.
 

Attachments

  • CaptivaLightning_1_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_1_x.jpg
    404.5 KB · Views: 143
  • CaptivaDusk_x.jpg
    CaptivaDusk_x.jpg
    673.8 KB · Views: 71
  • GoinOut_x.jpg
    GoinOut_x.jpg
    699.6 KB · Views: 67
  • GoodMorningFtMyers_x.jpg
    GoodMorningFtMyers_x.jpg
    922.3 KB · Views: 141
  • MorningSucks_x.jpg
    MorningSucks_x.jpg
    861.8 KB · Views: 134
  • CaptivaLightning_3_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_3_x.jpg
    453.5 KB · Views: 139
  • CaptivaLightning_2_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_2_x.jpg
    490.4 KB · Views: 137
The second trip was in late August. This time I remembered to bring my tripod, and I waited patiently for a typical Florida evening thunderstorm......that never came. I did take some of the obligatory sunset pictures, and some of my usual "available darkness" stuff.

On our last night there I went out for a walk about 10 PM and walked about a mile north to the tip of the island, when a fast moving storm zipped through and grew larger and larger over the mainland about 5 miles to the north east. I left the beach and cut through the marina to get to pier. The sky grew rather angry, and the marina looked quite peaceful, note the guy in the yacht on the left plotting the next day's fun.

I set up the tripod on the fishing pier as I helped a teenage kid get a catfish off his hook and toss it back to be caught again some day. The storms over Ft. Myers grew rather intense, and I took pictures until the camera's battery died, over 500 pictures that night, most of which were useless. It's hard to guess lightning.
 

Attachments

  • CaptivaLightning_6_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_6_x.jpg
    605.2 KB · Views: 65
  • CaptivaLightning_7_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_7_x.jpg
    600.8 KB · Views: 58
  • CaptivaLightning_5_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_5_x.jpg
    500.5 KB · Views: 67
  • CaptivaLightning_4_x.jpg
    CaptivaLightning_4_x.jpg
    639 KB · Views: 64
  • CaptivaMarinaMidnight_x.jpg
    CaptivaMarinaMidnight_x.jpg
    493.7 KB · Views: 64
  • CaptivaAngrySky_x.jpg
    CaptivaAngrySky_x.jpg
    737.4 KB · Views: 68
  • CaptivaDarkness_3_x.jpg
    CaptivaDarkness_3_x.jpg
    726.6 KB · Views: 56
  • CaptivaDarkness_1_x.jpg
    CaptivaDarkness_1_x.jpg
    676.2 KB · Views: 58
  • CaptivaSunset_1_x.jpg
    CaptivaSunset_1_x.jpg
    858.1 KB · Views: 78
@Tubelab, great pictures. When I was in Florida ( Tampa Bay ) in July 1989, we had thunderstorms every night, but in the morning it had all cleared up to reveal day after day clear blue sky's, with one memorable exception, when it rained so heavily in the afternoon that we had to stop the car when crossing one of those sea bridges, because you couldn't see 2 feet in front!

______________

It continues to be unexpectedly warm, this being the last day of September. Forecast is for this good weather to continue until the weekend! 🙂
 
Last edited:
When I was in Florida ( Tampa Bay ) in July 1989, we had thunderstorms every night

I lived in Florida for 61 years before moving 1200 miles north. Afternoon and evening thunderstorms are a daily event in the summer. Heat from the sun evaporates water out of the everglades into the air and the moist air expands as the temperature rises pushing it outward toward both coasts. Then as the sun sets and the air temperature drops the moist air becomes supersaturated, and rain must occur.

Florida has more lightning strikes, and deaths than any other state. I started taking lightning pictures about 40 years ago on film. I had a darkroom and did my own developing and printing. I have boxes full of negatives from 1974 to the late 80's. I will get a scanner and digitize them someday.......
 
My bad, professional deformation hiccup.

(An old classmate of mine is vp at Rybovich in Palm Beach, Ft Lauderdale before that. Me, I live at a stone throw from the test track for things as this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovd03_R9QQ8 )

Sailboats then (140' aluminum, Vitters, NL), the all-black US GAO vessels entering/exiting the harbor are a mighty impressive sight.
Dangerous location to have a beer, vision a fat guy chasing boats with a camera along the 300 yards of an old fortress wall, every time.
(your last picture looks like my front yard plus 500 paces)
 

Attachments

  • BDick.JPG
    BDick.JPG
    279.5 KB · Views: 115
Last edited:
the test track for things as this

65 Meters......yeah that's big.

The biggest motor vessel I have seen in the marina at Captiva was 102 feet (31M). I talked to the kid who was washing it down after a cruise, and he said it was at the limit of the channel coming into the resort. One of the markers and a light or two are visible in some of my pictures.

Dangerous location to have a beer, vision a fat guy chasing boats with a camera along the 300 yards of an old fortress wall

I'm not fat, and didn't have a beer at 7AM, but I was chasing that boat, as I have done with several others, down a sea wall that is about 1 foot wide to get the rising sun behind the boats bridge.

My bad, professional deformation hiccup.

I'm not the usual sailboat snob that disses every powerboat on the water, calling the gas powered boats "stinkpots" and the diesels "smokers."

The only boat that I have ever owned was a 14 foot Hobie Cat that I sailed along the Florida coastline for about 15 years. I had 2 friends in my teenage years whose parents had 34 foot sailboats. I spent many days aboard those boats along South Florida and the Bahamas. That's where I learned to sail.

At the time I could recognize the common sailboats seen in Biscayne Bay, but never paid much attention to power boats......That was the 1960's and early 70's. Things have changed a bit since then.

Back then a "Big Johnson" was a 150 horsepower outboard engine......
 
Hope it's that easy to remedy - not all are

Yes it was Chris...the resistor R89 was burnt, he replaced it with a 20k value one...now it's working again. 🙂

Guess how much he charged me?

* I think the original value of the burnt resistor was 19.1k. ...According to that link I posted on the prior page, post #1162.

_________

♦ Another gorgeous day here...all sun and warm.

_________

<<>> And George, thanks for sharing your cool pictures.

*** And that sail boat on top of this page, can we go sailing now? 🙂
 
Last edited:
I like to look at the pictures first and read later and was wondering how you ended up with that many lightning shots.

I learned a trick many years ago in the film camera days. Put the camera on a tripod or other sturdy surface. The pictures in the first post were taken with the camera sitting on top of a wood trash can stand on the beach. It must be very dark outside with minimal light in front of the camera.

Put the camera in auto mode, or Aperture priority auto. Point it toward the thunderstorm and push the shutter button.....repeat, often. A camera with good low light metering will open the shutter and keep it open until the meter records enough light for a "proper" exposure. If your camera has a "film speed" or ASA setting, you can tweak it to compensate for bad metering.

This used to be needed with film because of reciprocity failure, but most digitals either get it right, or don't work at all on automatic long exposure. The little Panasonic seems to give up and close the shutter after 8 seconds of darkness. If there was a flash of lightning during those 8 seconds, it closes immediately. The picture may, or may not be properly exposed, because some lightning is pretty bright.

Florida has lightning....lots of lightning. Some thunderstorms are more violent than others, and those two nights were pretty well "lit up". Still, out of over 500 "pictures" taken on the second night, there were 10 or 12 good lightning pictures. Most of the useless shot were completely black, overexposed, or blurry due to cloud movement during several dim lightning strikes.

All of the pictures I posted were taken in "programmed auto" mode "P" on a Panasonic or Canon camera. The Aperture priority (A) shots set at 8 seconds picked up too much light from the condos behind me, but provided a yellow tint to the water, and lit up the sign.

This picture was an 8 second exposure taken on the sea wall in the same spot at the GoodMorningFtMyers shot was taken in early morning. This was before the storm came through.
 

Attachments

  • SeawallAtNight_x.jpg
    SeawallAtNight_x.jpg
    646.2 KB · Views: 105
Gee Bob, lemme guess that the gas to drive from up-island and a cappuccino at Starbucks was more. Glad to hear it all worked out

Fifty bucks...plus tax. ...Gas was about $20, and lunch about $10.
I had coffee earlier...@ home.

* I bought a lottery ticket...five bucks. 😀

It was hot...the girls looked good...the horizon peaceful.

Today...you know...the clouds came this morning...cleared up in the afternoon...then covered the sky again in late afternoon.

The best thing in life...to be alive...nature.
The worst thing...inhuman...people who became money machines and who don't care about the most important values of life. Unfortunately they are everywhere...and they form our societies in masses.

It's ok, our planet is still a walk in a park and watchable.
It's the human global warming that I'm the most afraid of.

♦ Eye in the Sky ... Star scintillating.
 
Last edited:
Cold today? Well numerically it wasn't hot, but wasn't really cold either. I left the house this morning it was 51 F and lightly raining. I was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and flip flops.

I have collected a stack of recall notices on my Honda that has grown to about an inch thick. One involves brake failure, and another an exploding airbag, so I went to the Honda store about 2 months ago, to be told that parts were on order. Earlier this week I got the call that parts were in, bring the Element in for service Today at noon.

The Honda dealer is at the "Highlands" in Triadelphia West Virginia. It is the highest elevation in the surrounding area, and as such it gets a lot of weather. When I got there it was raining, 44 degrees, and very windy. I dropped off the car, and took their free shuttle to the shopping center on the other side of I-70.

About 4 PM the dealership called to say that the car was done.....but their shuttle driver had left for the day. I decided to walk back to the dealership. I thought it was a good choice, until I walked out of that store I was in.....It was flippin cold and wet, and windy today.

I got the car back home about 5:30 PM and took a nice hot shower......The TV said that we are back on flash flood warnings for the next 3 days. We had them for most of the week already, except for today.