SkyPix

A digital photographic storybook of clouds, weather and water by Roger Edwards.

Badlands Reflections

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Puddles left over from the previous evening's and overnight rains reflected a jagged ridge of eroded, soft sediments in Badlands National Park.  Every year, a few more millimeters to inches of clay and sand wash downriver from all the Badlands slopes, ultimately delivered to the bottoms of the big reservoirs of central South Dakota.  Before the lakes here and elsewhere were built, this material … [Read more...]

Sunrise through the Rain

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Sunrises on the High Plains can be wondrous experiences, even more so when the vista includes part of South Dakota's Badlands.  As a night person, I seldom indulge in sunrise due to usually being fast asleep at this hour, after a day and evening of storm observing.   In this case, I awoke too soon while car camping, to the early northern-latitude daybreak and the pitter-patter of raindrops on the … [Read more...]

Abandonment Reflections

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Literal and metaphorical reflection pervade this place of poor drainage where a once-thriving farmstead has been given over to the rising groundwater and its expansive floodwaters.  Water tables and stream flows have been growing gradually in much of the Sandhills of Nebraska for the last couple decades, at least.  A check of satellite imagery over time shows ponds forming and enlarging in recent … [Read more...]

Electrified Twilight

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Even a rather featureless, high-based, seemingly innocuous thunderstorm can offer a wild show.   I had arrived here wondering what to do with the situation after an earlier, nearby, right-moving supercell died, with a rather extensive swath of multicell thunderstorms to the north through distant northwest.  Seeing a few sporadic lightning flashes, I set up camera on tripod to see if I could get … [Read more...]

Comet NEOWISE: Dawn Twilight Portrait

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Zooming in from the previous landscape view, and flipping to portrait alignment, allowed the ground (and a reference tree) to remain in view while capturing an even bigger view of the delightful comet NEOWISE.  The comet was visible with the naked eye, but barely, and the sky was somewhat darker than this image indicates.  Time exposures of about 5 or 6 seconds allowed enough light to be consumed … [Read more...]

Comet NEOWISE: Dawn Twilight Landscape

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From an eastern Norman hilltop, we could see the beautiful comet NEOWISE roaming the predawn skies in July 2020, above a very humid boundary layer.  It is only the second comet I've been able to shoot, after Pan-STARRS in 2013 (attempts at Hale-Bopp-1997 with slide film failed, though it was the brightest of the three by far).  This comet bears the name NEOWISE after the NASA Wide-field Infrared … [Read more...]