Back from another mineral-hunting adventure.  This time the objective was quartz crystal.

Since it's the bright season, I hadn't bothered to check the meteor detections in a few weeks, but there were a few detections, mostly by our southernmost camera at 58N.  Here's one against a backdrop of noctilucent clouds that appeared 2019-06-28 01:14 local time (close to geographic midnight).  It's a fairly faint meteor, so it's hard to see in the video unless full screen in HD.

After a few years, I made a return visit to this nearby fossil location and came across this treasure.  Huge boulder totally covered with fossilized palm fronds (Eocene Epoch, 55-45 Mya subtropical floodplain).  Geology pick for scale.



Incredible, and I'm very glad nobody has destroyed or chipped chunks off of it.  And without a helicopter it's going nowhere.  Trees are growing up around it though, so it will get harder to find and eventually weather away.  Hopefully it remains intact for many years to come at least.  I leave it as is, and don't reveal its exact location.  But I did return with these other specimens from the area:

Watsisname wrote:

After a few years, I made a return visit to this nearby fossil location and came across this treasure.  Huge boulder totally covered with fossilized palm fronds (Eocene Epoch, 55-45 Mya subtropical floodplain).  Geology pick for scale.

Amazing 
I love fossils, I don't have photos of old ones I found but I have a photo of a -potential- fossil.
I don't really know what it is, probably an eroded shell!

From a hike in Jorunheimen last weekend.

Another nice day in the mountains.  Went high contrast with this shot and love the effect.

An intense thunderstorm just rolled through about an hour ago, with many cloud to ground strikes.  Lightning is so uncommon here (maybe you'd hear one or two faint rumbles of thunder in a given summer), so this was a rare treat, and I was thrilled to try my hand at lightning photography again -- something I never had a chance to do since moving from the more stormy climate in Virginia.

Nice! I love lightning photos. I had a good lot I got back in 2014, had no decent lightning since then unfortunately.

Massive thunderstorms were the norm here when I live as a kid back in the 90s but the climate has changed and our summers are much drier and storms are rare now.

Wat, do you use a lightning triggering app for your excellent lightning photos?

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post Wat, do you use a lightning triggering app for your excellent lightning photos?

Nope!  I don't think such an app is necessary.  I just set a long (15") exposure, press shutter, hope for lightning, and repeat.   I could have used an intervalometer to trigger the shutter repeatedly for me, but as I was setting up in a hurry, I didn't bother.

vlad01 wrote:

Source of the post Massive thunderstorms were the norm here when I live as a kid back in the 90s but the climate has changed and our summers are much drier and storms are rare now.

That's sad to hear.  In this area thunderstorms were never common (at least for going back 100 years), but the summers are likewise becoming longer and drier, with more sunny days.  Almost California-like.  It's pleasant in some ways (though I always liked the rainier weather), but also causing a lot of stress on the trees and for farmers.

Went hiking in the mountains this weekend, doing one of the most popular hikes in Norway (again).  About 50,000 people do this 14 km hike every year.  It's not a difficult hike, but, as always, the weather can quickly change in the mountains.  This time we managed to finish a few hours before the remnants of hurrican Dorian hit southern Norway as a storm dumping up to 150 mm precipitation in 24h, as rain below 1000 masl, as snow above that.  It was just a gale during the hike, but for the most part making it easier serving as a push in the back.

Very early signs of winter in southern Norway as well.  This is from my neighbourhood in Oslo on the 4th of October.  Just a light snowfall and the snow is gone now, except in a few shady places, but a new, larger round of snowfall is expected tomorrow.

Exploring for blue agates in a magical location.

A cat,


and a fractal,


blended by an artificial intelligence: