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The Most Epic Supercell Thunderstorm Footage 

After four years of unsuccessful storm chasing, Mike Olbinski finally found what he was looking for. A massive rotating supercell thunderstorm with complex structure and active movement.

The result was the epic time-lapse video embedded below. The storm was spotted on June 3, 2013, near Booker, Texas. It was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and Rokinon 14mm 2.8 lens.

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THE MASKED OWL

The Australian Masked Owl (Tyto novaehollandiae) is a barn owl of Southern New Guinea and the non-desert areas of Australia.

Masked Owls show strong reverse sexual dimorphism (obvious differences between male and female). A male Masked Owl’s weight ranges from 420-800g, while females are typically much larger ranging from 545-1260 g. Length ranges between 330–410 mm for males and 390–500 mm for females. Wing span is up to 1280 mm for southern female Masked Owls.

They are nocturnal and their prey includes rodents, small dasyurids, possums, bandicoots, rabbits, bats, birds, reptiles and insects. Their population on the mainland is declining and several states have placed this owl on the Species Conservation Status list.

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The terraces are located in Matsuura-shi, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.

In agriculture, a terrace is a piece of sloped plane that has been cut into a series of successively receding flat surfaces or platforms, which resemble steps, for the purposes of more effective farming.

Graduated terrace steps are commonly used to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain. Terraced fields decrease erosion and surface runoff, and are effective for growing crops that require a lot of water, including rice.

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Picture of the Day: Inside a Hot Air Balloon

In this amazing capture by Rockstar-sponsored athlete, Mark Freeman, we get to see the inside of a hot air balloon. The photo was taken with a GoPro camera on a pole, as he embarked on a hot air balloon ride with Cloud Chasers in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

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A SEA OF PEOPLE

In this beautiful long exposure photograph by optickarma, we see fans heading home after an England vs Holland friendly at Wembley Stadium on Feb. 29, 2012. The police officers on horseback are clearly not moving much, which really adds to the dramatic effect of this photograph and the movement of so many people.

According to the camera info on Flickr, the exposure was 7 seconds long with a focal length of 23mm at f8 and ISO 200.

For those that are curious, Holland won the game 3-2. Knowing how passionate English fans are about football, the crowd looks to be moving quite orderly!

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A tiny house on the Drina River, near Bajina Basta, a small town in Western Serbia. The Drina is a 346 km long river that forms much of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Alps.

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Crimson Skies and Mammatus Clouds

In this amazing photo, we see crimson mammatus clouds over Citi Field in Queens, New York. The photograph of the intense storm was taken before the game on June 26, 2009 by Flickr user beau-dog.

Citi Field is the home baseball park of the New York Mets. It was completed in 2009 as a replacement for the adjacent Shea Stadium which opened in 1964.

Mammatus, also known as mammatocumulus (meaning “mammary cloud” or “breast cloud”), is a meteorological term applied to a cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of a cloud. The name mammatus is derived from the Latin mamma (meaning “udder” or “breast”).

Mammatus are most often associated with the anvil cloud and also severe thunderstorms. True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers – appearing around, before or even after severe weather.

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OUT FOR A FAMILY STROLL

In this majestic photo we see a mother and baby Sperm whale swimming in the ocean. The Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) is the largest of the toothed whales. Its name derives from a waxy liquid called spermaceti, found in its enormous head. The sperm whale is also known as the cachalot.

Mature males average at 16 metres (52 ft) in length but can reach 20.5 metres (67 ft), with the head representing up to one-third of the animal’s length. The sperm whale feeds primarily on giant and colossal squid. Plunging to 3 kilometres (9,800 ft) for prey, it is the deepest diving mammal.

Its clicking vocalization, a form of echolocation and communication, can be as loud as 230 decibels underwater, making it the loudest sound produced by any animal. It also has the largest brain of any animal on Earth, more than five times heavier than a human’s.

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OBSERVING MARS IN 1926 

 

In this photo from 1926, we see George A. Van Biesbroeck (1880-1974), an astronomer at Yerkes Observatory, observing Mars when it approached close to the Earth that year. Van Biesbroeck is shown using the observatory’s 40 inch refracting telescope, the largest of its kind in the world.

A refracting or refractor telescope is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image. The refracting telescope design was originally used in spy glasses and astronomical telescopes but is also used for long focus camera lenses. Although large refracting telescopes were very popular in the second half of the 19th century, for most research purposes the refracting telescope has been superseded by the reflecting telescope.