[pdx] Portland Amber Evening with Moon Shot

3222.

By last evening the extraordinarily thick haze from the wildfires in the east had cleared from the Valley somewhat, and visibility was much improved. But, as atmospheric events like this are wont to do, the visual aftereffects linger. This was downtown Portland, taken from the intersection of SE 12th Avenue and Morrison Street, looking west at about 7:00 PM:

I understand that glowing thing in the sky is a thing called "the Sun". Whether or not this is a cause for alarm remains to be seen.

The Coffee Room at Powell's City 'o' Books turned out to be a site for astronomical photography experimentation, naturally unexpected. The Wife™ saw what looked to be a half-moon setting over the Buffalo Exchange building across the street, and wanted a picture of that. Nothing really worked, and then I started playing with the camera a bit. Went into Manual mode and played the hell out of exposure and focal length, jacked up the zoom into the virtual range, and this is what I got:

As awesome a camera as it is, the Canon PowerShot S100 isn't the ideal camera for astronomical photos, and this won't get published in Astronomy magazine, but it's not too terribly bad, and much better than I expected. If I had a tripod with me and weren't taking pictures out of a fully-lit room, who knows? I could have gotten clear craters maybe.

[pdx] Day of the Wildfire Smoke, Part 3

3220.

Near home, in the David Douglas community on the deep eastside, and it's getting on toward sunset. And here's SE Stark Street near 102nd:

The real landscape wasn't at dark as that, but I wanted to show the redness of a a sun that was as much a red rubber ball as the morning's was.

This all calls to mind the old maxim:

Red sky at morning, Sailor take warning,
Red sky at night, Sailor probably lives in Portland
and is about 80 miles away from several major wildfires.

Or something like that.

[pdx] Day of the Wildfire Smoke, Part 2

3219.

From Southwest Portland and the Terwilliger Blvd Parkway we proceeded east over the Hawthorne Bridge into the Hawthorne District (a/k/a Chicville, Lower Cascadia).

This was the view from about 28th and Hawthorne looking west …

… and this was closer in, about 18th Avenue or so.

It bears remembering, I think, that the points-of-view in the above two photos were in areas that were, because of the miasma, not visible from the viewpoints on Terwilliger in the last posting.

The above is looking down Hawthorne east from about SE 35th Avenue. That dark area above the horizon in the distance is Mount Tabor. For comparison, this, taken in 2014 at the Hawthorne Street Fair, which isn't in exactly the same spot … but it's close enough.

What a day, huh? This is your world … and this is your world on global warming.

Any more questions?

[pdx] Day of the Wildfire Smoke, Part 1

3218.

The numerous wildfires in the eastern 2/3rds of Oregon and Washington are usually things those of us in the Willamette Valley hear of on the news, complete with pictures and live remotes.

Usually. Because this year, since the fires are so numerous and all following the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Wildfires (Rules 1-6 read 'burn everything', and rule 7 is 'when in doubt, see rules 1-6), and since we are afflicted with yet another continental weather system providing us with abundant offshore flow (a Pacific Northwest weathercaster term meaning the winds all go to the Pacific), this hellish fire season, everyone west of the Cascades gets a taste of it, and those with respiratory issues are strongly advised to stay indoors.

The day, Saturday, August 22nd, dawned auspiciously. Red sky at morning, Oregonian take warning; the morning sun was shinin' like a red rubber ball.

The above was taken at about 0715, as I departed my work site. The morning was remarkably amber from then on; the quality of the light in the air was more appropriate to sunset than not long after sunrise. And, all that day, I found myself wondering how much worse it would get. It's a good thing I got pictures; I myself couldn't foresee how sepulchral it would eventually get.

From about noon through to about 6 PM I spent the day in the company of some of my chums from high-school, and a better gathering could not have been had by anyone. The location was in Tigard, which is as far as you can go in the SW direction and remain in the Portland urban agglomerative disk. The haze thickened over the day. By the time we left and worked our way back through Tigard, this is what SW Pacific Hwy near SW 72nd Avenue and the Fred Meyer store looked like:

… and this was SW Barbur Blvd in the vicinity of SW 30th Ave (which is the light in the middle distance):

Despite the lateness of my day, I thought a viewpoint was needed. Portland's SW Terwilliger Blvd is famous for places to park and take in the pulchritdinousness that is Portland's city landscape from a point with a view. But today, this is mostly what Portland looked like from Terwilliger:

My city was gone.

The Tilikum Crossing:

Bridge of the people; smoke from the distant wildfires. More like Twilight of the Gods around here.

And this, the Marquam Bridge:

Absolute visibility here is something less than 2 miles. Clear visibility? Much less than that.

This view point is good for framing downtown Portland with views of Mount Saint Helens. Today's shot makes us imagine downtown Portland if Loo-Wit has erupted the other direction.

Another angle on the Marquam Bridge. Those buildings are new hotels and condos in the Riverplace and South Waterfront districts.

Our adventure continued east into the Hawthorne district. About which, anon.