Time-lapse photography of clouds and other phenomena in the sky

Timelapse of the southern sky taken from Punda Maria Rest Camp in Kruger National Park (or alternate site), South Africa. As you can see from the timelapse, the night was rather bad, with some smoke spreading from the southwest (well seen in the lower right part of the movie) - see e.g. this fire product derived from MODIS and VIIRS data (source here). Unfortunately, it was the only nighttime timelapse I managed to take during our entire 10-day trip to the park. In the Kruger NP, it is forbidden to stay overnight outside the camps (for security reasons - wild animals), and all the camps have lighting - which makes night-time astrophotography almost impossible there. Also, we were in the park around the time of the full moon, so we only had dark skies on several last nights, for a couple of hours in the evening. The timelapse was taken from an upper terrace of our cottage there (the only place with an almost open view to the sky), which also was the source of the variable illumination of the nearby trees. Well, if you visit the Kruger NP, you are there for the animals, not for the night sky... Moreover, the surroundings of the Kruger NP are quite light-polluted, as can be seen in the right (western) part of the timelapse.

See also this still image from the end of the timelapse sequence (19:37 UTC), and images from the Metop-C polar satellite from almost the same time (19:30 UTC) - the AVHRR channel 3 image and Night-microphysics RGB image. This short loop of the HRV images from geostationary satellite MSG2 (IODC) shows the dissolution of clouds around Punda Maria (marked with a red dot) shortly before sunset, the animation of the images from the same satellite in the  IR10.8 band documents distribution and movement of clouds from 12:00 to 23:45 UTC, and the animation of the images in the  WV6.2 and WV7.3 bands shows distribution and movement of moisture in the higher levels over the area. The green/red dot indicates the location and time of the timelapse, southward view.

See also images loops from the MSG4 (Meteosat-11) satellite, taken in RSS mode (5-minute scans) in the CE_VIS-IR and CZ1KM_HRV formats, and static images from NOAA-19 satellite taken just after sunset, Central Europe (VIS-IR) and Czech Republic (NM-RGB) formats. In the Meteosat images, the highest clouds (here cirrus) appears to be located more northward than in reality, due to parallax shift (slant view from the geostationary orbit).

Due to the not very favorable weather forecast for the "Perseid night" on 12/13 August this year I tried to go out two days earlier, on 10/11 August, to my favorite location near Jankovská Lhota, close to Votice (south-central Bohemia, Czech Rep.). Until midnight it was partially cloudy, clearing out later on. Despite the bad conditions I managed to capture several rather faint Perseids. Later in the night, the timelapse also shows nice onset of a green airglow and waves in it, propagating from various directions. Southward view, with city of Tábor shining at south.

Autumnal shelf cloud (if this term can be used in this case) over Prague, during passage of a cold front. In the MSG satellite images, there were several distinct convergence lines, resembling ropes, from early morning hours, and the time of transition of one of them corresponds to the captured phenomenon (although at the time of the timelapse it is hidden under higher clouds). Also in radar data there was a distinct linear formation of high radar reflectivity in the morning hours, but it broke up as it moved eastwards and was no longer visible over the area at the time of the timelapse (the place and time of the timelapse are marked with a red dot). Overpass of the phenomenon was accompanied by a drop of temperatuere, change of wind direction and speed, and onset of precipitation - see the weather record from nearby Prague-Libuš Observatory (time of the timelapse is marked here with a black rectangle). See also one static image from the timelapse, when the phenomenon was probably best pronounced. Taken from Okrouhlik near Křížkový Újezdec, central Bohemia.

Condensation trails (contrails), Prague - Kačerov, view to the southwest. See also two static images from about the same time - Sony A7C and Sigma 17mm (08:08 UTC) and the other one from timelapse, Samsung NX500 and Samyang 8mm (08:07 UTC). For comparison, see also an image from above, from Meteosat-11 (MSG4) satellite from roughly the same time (08:10 UTC, RGB VIS-IR), and an combined image loop from Meteosat-11 (scanning at 5 minute intervals) and Meteosat-10 (MSG3) at 15 minute steps (MSG4 was scanning at 5 minute Rapid Scan until 08:35 UTC only, when the regular two-day Rapid Scan outage started - hence the second part of the animation is only at coarser steps), and shorter, more detailed animation from MSG4 (5-minute scan in HRV channel) only.