Just three months before, I crouched under sea grape trees in the Florida Keys for a long exposure of the distant glow of Greater Miami. Now, 1,751 miles farther northwest, one mile higher and around 50 degrees (F) colder, a much less-distant urban glow lit up a series of small snow showers and their attendant, collective cloud field so brilliantly that only a few seconds’ exposure was needed to capture the peculiar scene. The lights that brightly illuminated one fairly wide clump of snow shafts in the shot below were from the city of Boulder, ironic source of considerable “light pollution.” The Boulder lights added to the ambient glow of the entire Denver metro area that bounced off the cloud deck, in turn illuminating the ground functionally well. Even in real time, with just the light available to eyes, one easily could walk across these fields with plenty of vision to avoid cattle and other obstacles, much as if under the full moon.
2 NW Broomfield CO (6 Mar 9) Looking WNW
39.9455, -105.109Snow Shafts in City Lights
Just three months before, I crouched under sea grape trees in the Florida Keys for a long exposure of the distant glow of Greater Miami. Now, 1,751 miles farther northwest, one mile higher and around 50 degrees (F) colder, a much less-distant urban glow lit up a series of small snow showers and their attendant, collective cloud field so brilliantly that only a few seconds’ exposure was needed to capture the peculiar scene. The lights that brightly illuminated one fairly wide clump of snow shafts in the shot below were from the city of Boulder, ironic source of considerable “light pollution.” The Boulder lights added to the ambient glow of the entire Denver metro area that bounced off the cloud deck, in turn illuminating the ground functionally well. Even in real time, with just the light available to eyes, one easily could walk across these fields with plenty of vision to avoid cattle and other obstacles, much as if under the full moon.
2 NW Broomfield CO (6 Mar 9) Looking WNW
39.9455, -105.109