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”.
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.
Indeed. Always delightful to see these gorgeous pyramid displays.
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!
Courage, sacrifice, devotion. Walt took the photos at 5 am.
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.
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.
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.
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.