Skywatching

I've been accumulating sky photos for almost a year, and with Comet NEOWISE in the sky, it's time to put them on the blog.

We'll start with daytime and move to the night sky.

Usually rainbows are much higher in the sky. Because their center point is 180° from the sun, when the sun is still relatively high in the sky, the rainbow is much lower to the ground. If the sun is too high, the rainbow can only be seen from a plane or a high mountain top. This photo was taken at 4 PM (Daylight Time) on 7 Aug 2019.

Last November Venus and Jupiter put on a nice display in the evening sky. Here they are above the sunset on 22 Nov 2019.

Last week (10 July 2020) a storm over 100 miles to east put on a nice lightning display in a 10-second exposure. The low-lying fog is illuminated by lights from Clifton Forge.

Fourth of July fireworks over Clifton Forge as seen from our deck.

Last night we were finally able to see Comet NEOWISE from our house. Previous attempts were thwarted by mountains, trees, and clouds.

The comet is directly below the Big Dipper (upper part of the photo), and because our western horizon is obscured by Fore Mountain, it dipped out of sight by 9:30 PM, when the sky was still not completely dark.

The Milky Way and some earthly clouds in the direction of Cassiopeia. The white line heading into the trees is a satellite crossing the sky as I took this 10-second exposure.