Strange Skies
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Moon

'Stunning' moon halo photographed by awe-struck viewers in Bristol, UK

Helena Horton
The Telegraph, UK
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 10:53 UTC
Moon halo over Bristol
© Via Twitter/William Belcher
A stunning moon halo was seen on Monday night and photographed by awe-struck viewers.

The phenomenon is called a 22-degree halo, and is more commonly seen around the sun.

Leighton James, a photographer in Bristol, told the BBC: "It's something I have never seen before and thought it looked quite amazing."

A 22-degree halo forms when there are high cirrus clouds passing slowly across the sky. The light from the sun or moon hit the ice crystals, and the refraction caused by that shows a halo. These halos in general are relatively common, but it's less common to see them form around the moon.

This is because the moon has to be in the new moon phase and the visibility has to be good in order for the halo to be seen.
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Camera

Rare ELVE and red sprites captured over thunderstorm in Czech Republic

Deborah Byrd
EarthSky
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 10:02 UTC
ELVE over Czech Republic
© Martin PopekThe ring of light was approximately 60 miles (100 km) wide. It’s a lightning phenomenon, known as an ELVE.
The enormous ring of light that appeared in the night sky on April 2 - above a thunderstorm in the Czech Republic - was a rare and fleeting lightning phenomenon.

Amateur astronomer Martin Popek of the city of Nýdek in the Czech Republic caught this rare red ring of light in the sky on April 2, 2017, using a low-light video camera. It's an example of an ELVE (Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources). Spaceweather.com explained:
ELVEs appear when a pulse of electromagnetic radiation from lightning propagates up toward space and hits the base of Earth's ionosphere ... A faint ring of light marks the broad 'spot' where the EMP hits.

ELVEs are elusive - and that's an understatement. Blinking in and out of existence in only 1/1000th of a second, they are completely invisible to the human eye.
ELVEs are often accompanied by red sprites, often called lightning sprites, and that was the case here. The image below - also captured by Popek on April 2 - shows them.

These lightning phenomena are extremely elusive. For one thing, they flash on a millisecond timescale. They're also above thunderstorms, so they're usually blocked from view on the ground. Astronauts in space have the perfect vantage point for seeing ELVEs and lightning sprites, and indeed ELVEs were first seen by cameras on the space shuttle in the 1990s.

Comment: Another ELVE was photographed above a thunderstorm in Colorado last year. A few days ago 6 'gigantic jets' (ionospheric lightning) were captured above storm clouds in Western Australia. Another blue jet was observed over Brazil last month. These transient luminous events (TLEs) are not so 'rare' these days.

See also: Electric universe: Lightning strength and frequency increasing

The Electric Universe model is clearly explained, with a lot more relevant information, in the book Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

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Seismograph

Largest Ever Earthquake in Botswana, Purple Skies over India & Mini Ice Age Signs Uptick

Adapt 2030
YouTube
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 07:05 UTC
Purple skies over India
© YouTube/Adapt 2030 (screen capture)
As our Sun and Earth descend into a grand solar minimum, mega quakes have always occurred during these lows in solar activity. One indicator that we are repeating this same cycle is to see earthquakes in strange areas of the globe, the North Pole and now the strongest earth quake ever recorded in Botswana and southern Africa. Electrical and atmospheric changes are very apparent now with purple skies, phenomenal electrical discharges and fierce hail in strange locations globally in the wrong season.

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Bizarro Earth

Ring of red light snapped over Czech Republic


SpaceWeather
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 23:21 UTC
On April 2nd, high above a thunderstorm in the Czech republic, an enormous ring of light appeared near the edge of space. Amateur astronomer Martin Popek photographed the donut-shaped apparition using a low-light video camera:
ELVE
© Martin PopekTaken by Martin Popek on April 2, 2017 @ Nýdek, Czech republic.
"It appeared for just a millisecond alongside the constellation Orion" says Popek.
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Rainbow

Rare circumhorizontal arc 'fire rainbow' captured over Peru

Ekin Karasin
Daily Mail (UK)
Tue, 28 Mar 2017 10:57 UTC
Peru fire rainbow
© CENThe horizontal 'rainbow of fire' is scientifically known as a circumhorizontal arc. It is caused by numerous hexagonal ice-crystals in the clouds that are lined up horizontally when the sun is around 58 degrees from the horizon
An incredible 'rainbow of fire' cloud has been snapped by astonished bystanders who claimed it looked like Hell had 'split open'.

The phenomenon was spotted by citizens in the early hours of the morning in Patapo, in the Peruvian city of Chiclayo.

Despite the visual spectacle actually being formed of ice-crystals refracting sunlight at a certain angle, villagers joked that it was the onset of a biblical Apocalypse.

Villagers shared photos of the rare cloud on social media, where they went viral.

In footage of the rare phenomenon, one onlooker says: 'Good afternoon, right now we are seeing a rare yellow line in the sky, and people are a bit scared.

'The rainbow appeared in the early hours of this morning. It appears to be a cloud with a colour similar to yellow.'
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Info

US scientists launch world's biggest solar geoengineering study

Adapt 2030
YouTube
Wed, 29 Mar 2017 06:09 UTC
US geoengineering program
© YouTube/Adapt 2030 (screen capture)
As all indicators for our Sun and the next solar cycle signaling a grand solar minimum and cooling temperatures as Earth enters a Mini Ice Age, the IPCC will need to explain our cooling world. Here is the excuse they will use a high altitude tethered balloon ice crystal delivery system that is supposed to replicate a volcanic eruption and block out sunlight. The groups from Harvard and funding agencies involved in the project will then take credit for cooling the planet and saving us from global warming. The stage is set, but the "experiment" is $29 Billion, so full implementation will run in the trillions. They will need your money.


Comment: What hubris! What desperate attempts at damage control as signs of Global Cooling become increasingly evident! See also:

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Sun

Sun halo awes visitors to Anhui province in China

Wang Quan
CGTN Live
Mon, 27 Mar 2017 13:46 UTC
Sun halo in China
© VCG
On March 26, a solar halo appeared in the sky above the historic city of Huangshan, in east China's Anhui Province.

According to local media, the halo appeared at around 11am and lasted for almost two hours.

Photographers were able to snap some stunning pictures, as the bright halo rings reflected rainbow colors.

China Meteorological Administration describes solar halos as optical phenomena that form when hexagonal ice crystals in cirrus clouds refract and reflect the sun light.

Solar halos often appear in spring and summer. This was the first solar halo to be observed in Huangshan's Shexian county since 2012.

Comment: Rare double sun halos appeared the same day in Yongzhou City, central China.

Double sun halo China
© Central China Television


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Sun

Sun halo spotted in Tennessee Valley, Alabama

Christina Edwards and Jake Reed
WHNT
Wed, 22 Mar 2017 16:30 UTC
Sun halo seen over Huntsville, AL
© Ramona Edwards
Did you see a halo around the sun Wednesday?

If you did, you spotted an atmospheric optical phenomenon known as a 22-degree halo.

Earthsky.org explains it very simply: "Halos are a sign of high thin cirrus clouds drifting 20,000 feet or more above our heads.

These clouds contain millions of tiny ice crystals. The halos you see are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also by reflection, or glints of light from these ice crystals."

It is called a 22-degree halo because the ring has a radius of approximately 22 degrees around the sun or moon.
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Cassiopaea

Supernova spotted in constellation Lupus

Alison Klesman
Astronomy
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:04 UTC
Supernova in NGC 5643
© Racheal Beaton/Carnegie Institution for Science
When most people hear the word supernova, they envision a massive star reaching the end of its life and exploding outwards to leave a ghostly remnant in its place. This is called a Type II supernova — the spectacular Supernova 1987A, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, was a Type II.

Alternatively, a Type Ia supernova occurs when a white dwarf, the remnant of a Sun-like star, grows too massive after stripping a binary companion star of its outer layers. When the white dwarf reaches a critical mass, a runaway fusion reaction occurs in its core and the star explodes in a Type Ia supernova. Such a supernova has just been spotted occurring in a galaxy about 55 million light-years away.

Announced by Rachael Beaton at the the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Pasadena, CA, and known as 2017cbv (though Beaton has nicknamed it Bob), the explosion was spotted in NGC 5643, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Lupus.

The area of the sky it inhabits is also part of the area covered by the Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey, a project aimed at gathering optical and near-infrared images of bright Southern Hemisphere galaxies. NGC 5643 was also the home galaxy of SN 2013aa, which occurred in early 2013.
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Fireball

SOTT Focus: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - February 2017: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs


Sott.net
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 08:35 UTC
Fireball Illinois
Februrary 2017 continued on as January started. Massive flooding in California due to "atmospheric rivers" dumping large amounts of rain on coastal areas and snow on the Sierra Nevada. The snow melt from this caused further flooding in Nevada. Eastern Canada also experienced record snowfall, as did Iran, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Japan.

Wildfires broke out in Eastern Australia and New Zealand while record rainfall inundated Western Australia. Major flooding also hit several South American nations including Chile, Peru and Colombia.

There are at least 30 active volcanoes around the world right now, including a really impressive one in Guatemala. Massive earth cracks opened in Pakistan and Italy.

These are just some of the chaotic events we present in this month's Sott 'Earth Changes' video compilation.

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