This was actually a few minutes that I condensed down to seconds. Absolutely stunning to behold! Observed on top of a mall parking garage in St. Louis, MO at sunset.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sky-now-social/id6794937963 This is the free app I made so that my sky loving friends don’t miss this kind of thing.
I had this idea a couple of years ago when there was a double rainbow outside and I missed it, only to see it on social media after the fact. It is a crowdsourcing app (NO COST) that sends you a notification when more than 2 people near you (within 100 miles) have posted that something cool is happening in the sky. If you're the first to observe it, you can be a part of the posts that alert others. The app also has alerts for predictable events like full moons and meteor showers, and a section that tells you when sunset and moonrise times are, and relevant planets are in the sky.
You can sign up for as many or as little alerts as you want. You can see sky photos from around the world over the past 24 hours. You can see where the best sunset views are in your area. There are tags for regular weather events, but also "unidentified", which is cool for when a bunch of people are posting about seeing those crazy fireballs lol.
I'm in testing right now, waiting on approval to get on the app store. Anyone can be involved in the testing on both Apple and Android. I really hope there are other sky nerds in the St. Louis area out there who think this is a cool idea. If so lmk. I've gotten some great feedback so far from friends and family.
Here’s the video of the lightning with crazy magenta and green colors (posted the photo a little while ago). Debating what caused this…thanks!
I took a video of lightning yesterday, and this is a still shot from the video. Is this chromatic aberration? I've never seen anything like it! Edited to add- it was an iPhone17 Pro camera.
Caught this video yesterday and it was awesome! Does anyone know what caused the magenta and green on the power lines? Camera glitch of some sort? I loved watching it dissipate into nothingness with the little ball of light. I’m SkyGirlSTL on Instagram for the video of the lightning bolt.
Kinda pitiful, but true. I have some health issues where drinking makes them worse. I get PVCs and racing heart at times, and even a few beers makes me feel them more for days afterwards, but only sometimes. I was sober from 2015-2019 because of this. I started drinking again because of stress, and honestly, having a few beers is one of my few pleasures in life. I feel happy for a few hours. Then of course the bad health consequences follow, and I experience regret and anger that I can't just live a normal life and have a few beers once a week. Like that's literally it- 2-4 beers maybe twice a month, and my body still can't handle it. My sleep is wrecked for days afterwards, my weird body symptoms flare up, my heart flares up. And my memory is like that of a squirrel or I just say eff it and go for it again a couple weeks later. I wish I could truly stop, but it also depresses me that I won't have the one source of happiness I can find in life when I just feel flow, joy, I listen to music and play guitar, it's just so freeing. Sorry if I'm breaking rule 2, but this is how I feel and I don't know how to get out of it and stop myself from making this stupid choice that clearly the benefits don't outweigh the consequences.
Hi, we're planning on coming next week the 26-30th! We'll stay in Long Key. I am not the most adventurous physically, so looking for some recommendations for easy to see wildlife that won't require a lot of boating/walking/being in the heat for too long. Also appreciate any other must-see's or do's around the area (restaurants, sites, hidden gems...)
40F This was right after using those eye patches that are supposed to take dark eye circles away lol. Is there any hope for these bad boys?!
Monarch with milkweed, zebra swallowtail with pawpaw tree, and painted lady with aster. Here is my process- I am a very novice artist and idk if what I do is honestly even "true art". I would like to hear if what I am doing is cheating lol. I take a photograph of my subject (the butterfly or host plant). I use the photograph to trace the shapes and get the shadows/highlights/colors. I used Sketchbook iPad app to make these. I make layers of color and shape over the original photograph to match exactly the shading and color I see. I might use the pen tool, brush tool, pencil tool, whatever it takes to achieve what I see in the photo. At the end of the process, I have several digital layers of color. I delete the original photo layer underneath. Then I add the two drawings together (ie monarch and milkweed). If I use the reference photo on this level, am I still technically doing digital art? Or just some sort of tracing? Thanks for any input!