Lightning at the Lake

Hello everyone!  This is my (Jason's) first post to the WXtreme Chase Team blog.  I began chasing with the team in 2012 after meeting Eugene at ChaserCon in Denver.  For the upcoming 2013 storm season I decided to collaborate with Eugene and begin offering my photos, video and general storm input here instead of my old site at epic storms.  I couldn't think of a better starting blog than to share some pictures of storms I captured last weekend.

On March 30th some severe storms went up about 100 miles to my south.  It was getting dark so I went to Lake Hefner which is only a few miles from my house to see if I could capture some lightning with nice reflection on the water.  Here are a few of the resulting images.

Comet PANSTARRS 03/18/2013

Since Comet PANSTARRS has been fading, the moonlight increasing and the last several evenings have been cloudy, this is probably the last image of it that I will post.  10 second exposure at ISO 800 90mm, f5.8.  Took quite a bit more effort to pull an image of the comet in - note the graininess of the shot (which BTW was increased because I stacked a couple of images to enhance the definition of the broad fan-like tail a bit.)

Gene

Comet PANSTARRS 03/14/2013

A couple more shots of PANSTARRS.  We had a nice clear night in W Oklahoma and the comet was visible (though just barely) to the unaided eye from my vantage point on White Dog Hill  east of Clinton, OK.
Here are shots from about 8:45 CDT:

In the skyline over Clinton.  ISO 800 84mm (effective 165mm with ex - conv) F5.8 5 seconds:

140 mm (effective 280 with ex-conv) ISO 800 F5.8 5 seconds (Image Cropped): 

Gene

Comet PANSTARRS and Moon

Several shots of Comet PANSTARRS and the moon from March 12, 2013.  Again, not an impressive naked-eye object, in fact rather difficult to find.  But it does make some interesting pictures.  All images shot with a Panasonic GH-2 Micro 4/3 with 14-140 lens.

Image at 100 mm (200 mm effective) ISO 800 F9 5 seconds:

Comet PANSTARRS

Comet PANSTARRS does not appear to be an impressive naked-eye object...in fact it is quite difficult to find.  You need to know where to look.  But it is possible to pick it up somewhat more clearly with some timed exposures with a digital camera.  Here is what I managed last night in spite of high clouds:

15 second exposure at F22 ISO 320 with Panasonic GH2 75mm (150mm effective)

5 second exposure at F13 ISO 320 65mm (130mm effective)  cropped:

A shorter exposure with a larger f-stop picks up more of the head.  Longer exposure with smaller F-stop shows more of the tail.  Hopefully more to come in the next few days.

Gene