Friday 1 February 2008

Odd radius diamond dust from Fairbanks

A one night cold snap in Fairbanks on 24 January produced the above display with halos from pyramid crystals. Let Walt Tape, who took the photo, tell more:

"The temperature was between -25 and -30 °F (-32 and -34 °C). The crystals were probably power plant products, but I am not absolutely certain of that; there was a gap in the crystal swarm that occurred between the main plume and the area of the display. I did not see the 9° or 24° arcs in the spotlight. The photo was taken on the main highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage, which was not getting heavy traffic at 5am".

Two more photos ( 1 - 2 ).
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8 comments:

  1. Jukka2 February 2008 at 09:09

    This is something we here in Finland can only dream about - pyramidal crystals in diamond dust. With these winters we are getting threr is simply no chance (at least in southern Finland). Last year Jarmo got a few displays, but those are rare exceptions. Fairbanks material is always cheerful to see.

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  2. Jari2 February 2008 at 09:17

    Indeed. Always delightful to see these gorgeous pyramid displays.

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  3. Ágnes / Ági2 February 2008 at 11:03

    This a very beautiful photo, Walt. There hasn't been an odd-radius post on Halo Reports for quite a while, so it is really refreshing to see such a display again!

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  4. marko riikonen2 February 2008 at 20:52

    Courage, sacrifice, devotion. Walt took the photos at 5 am.

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  5. Walt Tape3 February 2008 at 00:15

    Marko was supposed to give Jari and Jukka everlasting fame and glory for resurrecting my miserable images from the dead. The images that I gave them were essentially black on black. So thanks.

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  6. Michael3 February 2008 at 04:47

    Nice one there walt. The plate arcs are unusually sharp looking the lower 9d plate arc shows the inverted V shape like what you see in simulations. Keep up the good work because I can only dream of halos like it being I live in Southern Ohio.

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  7. marko3 February 2008 at 11:41

    I had credited Jari (who accoding to the file name in the cover photo worked on it) in the original posting, but he soon noted the credits were not needed, so I removed them.

    The other two photos were my job - practically just increasing the exposure in photoshop RAW window.

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  8. Jari3 February 2008 at 11:51

    Oh, don't mention it guys. It was a joy working a file from a beautiful display like that!

    I wish we finally had some decent cold weather here. But no, what a crazy winter this has been. Instead, we got tons of snow last night.

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