I was helping a friend shoot a wedding in upstate Connecticut this past weekend, a true firefighter wedding. Fire apparatus mark the entrance to the wedding, hoses to mark isle, and for a surprise to the bride and groom, an honor guard with pike poles greeted them as they walked out of the ceremony! Congrats to Tyler and Kim Marchi!

I am ok after getting hosed down by the Enfield Fire Department across the street to was the poison off my face and body! The video is amazing.

This year the likes of Bob Hope’s USO Girl’s, Scooby Doo, The Munsters, Racing cars, Police Cars, and even an Ice Cream Truck competed in being the best float of he parade. Not to be out done, and staying with current events, the Spencer Funeral Home sponsored the likes of a BP skimmer pontoon boat. Adorned with plastic brown water fowl, yellow haz-mat suits, and many cans of
cold liquid dispersent, this clean-up crew hoped for a big win! They have my vote!

Here are some images from this great yearly event in East Hampton, Connecticut.

Who is racing who?

The police are not far behind.

Ice cream anyone?

Bob Hope would be proud!

I set up several cameras with wide angle lenses at 11:30 pm to see if I could get in on the tail end of the Perseid Meteor Shower which peaked several days earlier. Two and a half hours later I was quite pleased with what I saw throughout the night.

Visually I logged 84 meteors, with only 8 being sporadic (they were no where near the radiant). Most of them were very quick and short in duration. I only saw one really bright fireball in the east which lit up the sky for about 2 seconds. I was hoping that I had captured some of these photographically.

Here is a composite of what I captured, with the facts underneath it.

The camera was a Canon 20d with a Nikon 20mm lens set at f/3.4. Each exposure was for 30 seconds, controlled and captured by Images Plus software.

I captured 230 frames with 12 of them showing meteors. One was sporadic, and the others were Perseids. All of the 12 frames were combined into this one image and tweaked in Photoshop. At the bottom of the image is the beginning of the fireball that I mentioned going out of the frame.

All in all it was one of the best meteor watching nights I have ever had!

Give it some thought. I bet your wrong. Check out http://www.birdnature.com/groupnames.html for the correct answer and a lot more amazing bird group names!

Ok, you non astro minded blog viewers. Cygnus is a constellation. Cygnus is also the genus of a swan.

Yesterday was no exception as I was sent out to chase down some bad weather for work. I hit the jackpot when I took this image as two storm cells collided just north of Groton, Connecticut prompting the National Weather Service to send out a Tornado Warning for New London County.

Below is a image I took of the huge Cumulonimbus Cloud when the storms combined. I changed the color image into a ”retro” black in white one, to really bring out the clouds delicate features.

Please click on the picture to see a nice enlargement of it!

What better place for a butterfly to land but on a huge Sunflower.

Feel free to click on the image to see an enlargement of it.

The report stated that it went along a path 25 yards wide by 1.5 miles long, traveling along Blakeslee Street and High Streets.

Here are some pictures that I took of the many trees that got devestated, along with the structures that they fell on.

Several large trees in front of J. Timothy’s Restaurant were totally destroyed.

A tree on top of a house in Farmington, on Plainville Ave.

From the National Weather Service

…TORNADO CONFIRMED IN BRISTOL IN HARTFORD COUNTY CT…
 
LOCATION…BRISTOL IN HARTFORD COUNTY CT
DATE…JULY 21 2010
ESTIMATED TIME…415 PM EDT
MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING…EF1
ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WIND SPEED…90 MPH
MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH…25 YARDS
PATH LENGTH…1.5 MILES
BEGINNING LAT/LON…41.68 / 72.94W
ENDING LAT/LON…41.68 / 72.94W
* FATALITIES…0
* INJURIES…0
 
* THE INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO
CHANGE PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENT(S) AND PUBLICATION IN NWS
STORM DATA.
 
…SUMMARY…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TAUNTON MA HAS CONFIRMED A TORNADO
IN BRISTOL IN HARTFORD COUNTY CT ON JULY 21 2010.
 
A BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN OCCURRED NEAR BLAKESLEE AND HIGH
STREETS WHERE TREE TOPS WERE TWISTED OFF. DAMAGE FROM STRAIGHT
LINE WINDS WAS ALSO EVIDENT IN THIS AREA. SEVERAL TREES WERE
UPROOTED.
 
THE DAMAGE PATH WAS 1.5 MILES LONG AND 25 YARDS WIDE. DAMAGE WAS
CONSISTENT WITH WIND GUSTS OF AROUND 90 MPH WHICH IS CLASSIFIED AS
EF-1 ON THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE.
 
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE CONNECTICUT
DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY FOR THEIR
ASSISTANCE WITH THIS STORM SURVEY.
 
THIS INFORMATION CAN ALSO BE FOUND ON OUR WEBSITE AT
WEATHER.GOV/BOX.
 
FOR REFERENCE…THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE CLASSIFIES TORNADOES INTO
THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:
 
EF0…WIND SPEEDS 65 TO 85 MPH.
EF1…WIND SPEEDS 86 TO 110 MPH.
EF2…WIND SPEEDS 111 TO 135 MPH.
EF3…WIND SPEEDS 136 TO 165 MPH.
EF4…WIND SPEEDS 166 TO 200 MPH.
EF5…WIND SPEEDS GREATER THAN 200 MPH.

I headed for the highest place that I knew near New Haven. It was East Rock Park. At an elevation of 366 feet I knew I was going to get a nice view of this storm coming in. There was a lot of lightning with this cell so I weighed the danger factor against the “getting the shot” factor. I picked the latter, of course. Here is one of many images I captured.

As the storm approached I got some incredible images of this Shelf Cloud coming at me at 45 MPG before I retreated into my car to weather out the storm cell which passed in 20 minutes.

If you would like to see more cloud photos I have posted on this blog check out:

UFO Shaped Cloud - http://www.ctcameraeye.com/?p=1121

Storm Chasing in Connecticut - http://www.ctcameraeye.com/?p=2804

Cloud rotation witnessed - http://www.ctcameraeye.com/?p=1636

Sedona Skies - http://www.ctcameraeye.com/?p=2023

 Below are some more images that I got of the storm.

Being held on September 10-12 for it’s 20th year, CSP-20 is planned to be the best ever!

We will be back under dark skies in Ashford, Connecticut with special guests, Carolyn Shoemaker, and David Levy.

Registration is now open to secure a place to meet and greet these famous astronomers, and hear their presentations.

For more information go to the Astronomical Society of New Haven’s CSP’s web page at http://asnh.org/slideshow/CSPpicIndex.php .