A tale of April 25th: another fun Texas Panhandle day, where I learned what poor application of the storm nudger hypothesis looks like. Still nabbed the Sudan tornado, but just barely due to positioning on a downstream cell that wouldn't benefit from nudging. #stormchasing #weatherphotography

A photographic tale of the April 24th Matador, Texas, tornado & storm chase is all pulled together now. The view of it from the west was short, only about three minutes, but had some great light while it lasted. #stormchasing #weatherphotography

One of the best ways to bring old, left-behind images to life is to finally draft chase journals from months ago. Now in the thick of building out the 2025 chases — and the photo-illustrated April 22 Fort Stockton inflow monster adventure is ready. #stormchasing #weatherphotography

The long road to storms in the Mississippi Delta led to a detour for stretching of legs and clicking of shutters on the north Arkansas border at Mammoth Spring State Park. The spring has impressive water flow and the surrounding path gives some great views.

This one was puckering up for a great big kiss as it approached Briggs, Texas, May 1st. The 1st Oakalla tornado had finished roping out about 6 minutes earlier behind this new RFD punch. Just imagining someone walking out of that shop & the sudden double-take to see that looming. #weatherphotography

Storms were mostly goobery this day, except for a weird hybrid tornado near Belvue, Kansas, still hiding unannounced on my rear dashcam footage. Sunset was kind though and turned up a bunch of color and texture before everything muddied back up. April 28th, near Delia. #weatherphotography

Social media disfavors landscape crop. And I can't seem to adapt. Oh well. April 25th, after a couple tornadoes, this thing was still rolling along west of Lubbock, TX and happened to backdrop an old rusted wheel—that probably disappears at shriveled landscape sizes on phones. #weatherphotography

I can't recall experiencing a more perfect wall cloud than the one that dropped out of the April 24 Matador, TX storm. Bowdle was way more impressive overall, but that seemed more a carved out meso than wall cloud specimen. (Tornado starting to materialize at center here.) #weatherphotography

It's just an artificial boundary, but I have a fondness for stuff that lights up in the Oklahoma Panhandle. I've only logged four chases there, including this one that, I guess didn't have a heavy enough anvil for that crawler. Near Hardesty, April 23rd this year. #weatherphotography #okwx

Rock stack & Milky Way south of Winslow, AZ, a few months ago. Phoenix blazing 100 miles away on the right side with maybe a bit of Payson overlapped. And then guessing that's Heber-Overgaard on the left. #nightscape #astrophotography

Took a chance of seeing the aurora last night and was rewarded with a brief appearance between 0220–0240 UTC (1920–1940 MST). Taken at Ashurst Lake east of Flagstaff AZ at latitude 35.01°N. Bonus: meteor (probably a Geminid) with fading aurora. #astrophotography #aurora @tamithaskov.bsky.social

A prairie rattlesnake and some globemallow near Twin Arrows, AZ, a few years ago right in the early thick of the pandemic when it was less concerning sidling up to random rattlers than random people.

Four minutes before the dust whirls became obvious, exceedingly thin needles materialized to the right of the rfd dump. South of Littlefield, Texas, April 25, 2025 — 2256Z. For the 2 or 3 plains chasers that somehow see my posts here, did any of you catch these closer/more clearly?

Gaia GPS. Took too long to land on this. Til now soo much time got spent with county parcel viewers determining public/private land or arcgis surface geology to work out nightscapes/rockhounding sites, then plotting scouting ops/successes separately in Google Maps. More gpx sites to move over still.

2025 wound up pretty solid for tornadoes with 13 across 7 days. A couple powerflash-QLCSnadoes, another QLCS in the rear-viewnado, one dusty Mississippi dust bowl, a distant wedgy Sandhiller, & 3 dusty spinups fleshed out most of it. But at least 4 or 5 solid contenders were in there. #stormchasing

Turned up another burst sprites in a time lapse from April 23rd this year, north of Guyman, Oklahoma. They're not coming from the foreground storm, but something way further back. That made two decent ones from that night, swimming in all the green airglow. #sprites #weatherphotography

A churning LP west of Wink, Texas, earlier this year—April 26th. The light was great. The landscape was, 'eh'. It emerged in great shape after a collision with a left mover as it moved southeast and dished a great time lapse. #txwx #weatherphotography

November lightning. North Phoenix Wednesday night. I'll take it. Needs terrain. #azwx #weatherphotography

I wasn't in Phoenix for storms yesterday, but that changed in a snap after heading outdoors & seeing constant lightning over tops of buildings and a coherent cell on radar. Really glad to find this handy patch of unbuilt desert nearby to watch it move in. #weatherphotography #azwx

Another from last night when finer detail was erupting behind the Peaks. It was absolutely on fire at that point. Vertical geometry corrected this time to better show how the pillars splayed outward toward the edges instead of all being parallel straight up. #northernlights #nightscape

A slice of what we got over the San Francisco Peaks and Mt. Elden from Buffalo Park, Flagstaff tonight around 9:45PM/0445Z. I really struggled to process this one. I am also tired. The brighter yellow-orange pillars appeared white-ish to my eye as it was happening. #astrophotography #auroraborealis

Imaging comet Lemmon on October 23rd. I was planning to focus stack the sky with the astro rig as it was shooting the comet. But then kind of preferred the soft focus sky with all the star color and Corona Borealis arcing beautifully at upper right. So indecisively posting both:) #astrophotography

That one time back in April, giving Tennessee storm chasing a shot. Try as one may to stick to farmland in the delta, the better storms are going to go where they want. Which means trees & highway overpasses. Glad to have experienced that, but not high on my wish-to-revisit list. #weatherphotography

C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) from last night. It is a really good telescopic target right now! Lots more detail throughout the tail but especially close to the coma with streamers fanning out inside the dust tail. Interesting to see the turquoise coma breezing off to the right a bit too. #astrophotography

C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) with Arcturus blazing just above the horizon tonight. Naked eye, roughly 2° of the tail was visible compared to 5° in 15x70 binoculars and more like 8° in this shot. The heavy airglow was visible naked eye too as the comet dipped deeper into it. #astrophotography #comet

An abrupt tail disconnect with comet Lemmon Friday night. Almost didn't catch it in time to get in frame. The tail is streaming away fast. Frame by frame you can watch all of that breezing away from the comet 3-4 times faster than the comet is orbiting off to the left. #astrophtography #comet

Wide view of C/2025 R2 SWAN, M16, M17 and M24 dunking into the San Francisco Peaks and airglow Friday night. A bit of fall color showing up on those hills...along with a bright pumice mine. #astrophotography #comet

Two swans and an eagle. Comet SWAN—C/2025 R2—is drifting through the Milky Way now. Last night it drifted by M16/the Eagle Nebula and M17/the Swan Nebula. Lots of love already for comet colors, but that bumps up a few notches when a bright nebula or two are nearby. #astrophotography #comet

Once the last bit of twilight is gone, you might think, aha, maximum contrast! But then the blazing airglow says, aha, no! Tail shows up better at this point, but can’t pull it out any further with all the intervening ripples. Even with that, I still like what airglow does for a scene.

C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) at the beginning of astronomical twilight tonight. I could just barely make it out naked eye as a soft spot above left of Cor Caroli. I'm biding my time a bit on processing the telescopic shots, but it looks like there was a cool tail disconnect in progress. #astrophotography

I need to shoot twilight starscapes more often—not just when comets are trying to hide within. Can you spot it? Second pic points the way. C/2025 R2 (SWAN) Thursday evening. Not an obvious one like NEOWISE or Tsuchinshan-ATLAS recently. But I do have hopes for Lemmon soon. #comet #astrophotography

And then there's the other bright comet, C/2025 R2 (SWAN). Nice that it's an evening object, but it's still in heavy twilight + gibbous moon + horizon loving clouds. So definitely not as detailed as Lemmon the morning before. 1.5° tail looks yellowish—so maybe dust, not ion. #comet #astrophotography

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) from wayyy too early Thursday morning with all the good comet colors in the coma, dust & ion tails—with that stretching 6° in the uncropped original. It should keep getting better over the next few weeks and finally make it's way to the evening sky. A more tolerable place.

West of Flagstaff this afternoon. The search for structure worked out reasonably well. Better at times than this, but the CG demanded this moment be highlighted. #weatherphotography #stormchasing #azwx

I’d say this tour group got their money’s worth! I had planned to be driving home that day, but forecast instability & boundary options convinced me to hang around another day. SPC wasn’t too impressed though until 20Z as things started happening. May 1, 2025, Briggs, TX. #stormchasing

Coming up Friday night and really looking forward to it! 5:30PM, September 19th, from Flagstaff, AZ, the first International Dark Sky City. Workshop at the Astrogeology Science Center with a field session afterward just down the road in Buffalo Park. www.eventbrite.com/e/night-sky-...

Not enough time to haul off to a spot with a lower horizon, but the brief aurora display still lofted the tree tops at the end of astronomical twilight. East side of Flagstaff 35°N. 8:04 PM MST/0304Z. #northernlights #nightscape

Zodiacal Light blazing among the cinder cones north of Flagstaff. I love the depth showing up in scenes like this. Beyond the foreground lie ripples of airglow, further out the dust of our solar system slicing through and enveloping Jupiter & Venus, all atop a Milky Way backdrop. #nightscape

Fallen, snaggy tree and Flagstaff lights catching the Milky Way with SP Crater peeking in from the right. The camera had to almost get in the dirt for this one. #nightscape #astrophotography

Arizona locals interested in learning to photograph the night sky—there’s a little something happening in Flagstaff, Friday, September 19th. I’ll be leading a night photography workshop at the Astrogeology Science Center, with a field session in Buffalo Park right after. Link below: bit.ly/3UDqpWh

Occlusion approaching Hwy62/70 west of Matador, Texas on April 24th. It was moving slightly left to right from this spot, but not fast enough for my liking, so I drifted back west after this shot & got a view of nothing but rain as it crossed the road. #weatherphotography #stormchasing

I scouted unpaved roads south of Winslow looking for a decommissioned bridge Sunday night but got diverted by unexpected fences & gates. Along the way, some weathered sandstone outcrops kindly showed up and filled in while Payson tried to keep the Milky Way from touching the horizon. #milkyway

Storms got stingy with CGs after crossing the Bradshaws Friday night. Just enough IC flashes to keep one hopeful. Looking west over Dewey as the gust front moved in. #stormchasing #weatherphotography

Looking SW across Lake Mary yesterday evening. This was an interesting catch. The shutter was set to high-speed continuous. When the trigger fired, the right strike captured first, followed 1/12 sec later by the one on the left. I stacked both since they were buddies. #azwx #weatherphotography

Paper wasp scrambling in the back yard. I had an experimental truce with them this year since they don’t menace like yellow jackets & wow they kept the grasshopper swarms in check. Need to patch holes in the new retaining wall this winter so they don’t get overly entrenched. #macrophotography

June 7th last year, midway between Dunning & Arnold, Nebraska, as a tour group tries to catch a meso by the tail. #weatherphotography #stormchasing

Percy has a bust along the Pluto Walk at Lowell Observatory. Red uplighting is kind of ominous though.

On the other side of a key decision here. April 24, NW of Matador, TX looking North. Storm is wrapping up, rotating faster & moving in. Untested dirt grid to the right/east would keep close but require zigzagging in the path. Opted nope. U-turned just as this 1st dusty spinup lofted. #stormchasing

The Cassiopeia Milky Way has some interesting goodies embedded. Canon sensors read just enough deep red to hint at the emission nebulae scattered around…besides all the open clusters. 51 minutes tracked at f/4.0. #milkyway #astrophotography

Found a spot to pour the Milky Way into a snaggled goblet while air glow splashed everywhere. A couple weeks ago north of Flagstaff. #milkyway #nightscape