Parhelia and Solstice Sunrise

Last Monday we had cirrus clouds that produced some wonderful sun dogs.

You can see them in the photo above. The sun is behind the palm tree and there's a rainbow of color with a bright light extending out was from the sun on either side.

Here's a closeup shot of the one on the right.

As the clouds changed the show evolved into a full 22 degree halo.

 Finally, we has a beautiful sunrise this morning. Not a bad way to mark today's winter solstice.

Recent Sky Shots

Hey, it's been a while since I've posted some photography here, as most of it has been going straight to my Instagram account. So if you like what you see here, you should totally follow me there.

Thursday morning's crescent moon, complete with earthshine. 

Here's a beautiful sunrise from November 14th with layers of clouds and sky.

Another sunrise pic with clouds and their shadows.

We've got cool mornings in Arizona now. That means that hot air balloon season is back. Here are a few captures from last weekend and this morning:

Golden Sunrise

Yeah, Wednesday's sunset was pretty fantastic, but Friday's sunrise wasn't too bad either.

Here are a couple of shots of it, followed by a timelapse that I captured with my iPhone.

iPhone Time-Lapse Videos

The new iOS 8 operating system for the iPhone has a nifty time-lapse feature. I recently picked up the wonderful Joby tripod for the iPhone and have shot a couple of short cloud videos.

Yesterday morning:

Yesterday afternoon:

This morning's sunrise:
This is a fun feature and I'll be shooting some more of these. When I get something especially interesting it will certainly get posted here.