Lightning Shows, but no Lunar Eclipse
Posted: 28 August 2026
Tuesday night, 18 August 2026, there was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The launch was at 2101 MST, about 30 minutes past the time of best viewing due to the lower Sun angle. Clouds also interferred with viewing. No rocket exhaust or contrail was seen. However, the moonlit clouds made for a nice view of the western sky.
Wednesday night, 19 August, there was a severe thunderstorm north of Oracle. This 13 seconds video (normal speed) taken with an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max shows some of the continuous lightning from the storm.
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This is a merge of eight photos taken with a Nikon D850 DSLR and Tamron 24-70mm lens (f/5/6, 5 seconds, ISO 250, FL 24mm).
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Friday afternoon, 21 August, a strong thunderstorm passed close by but only dropped 0.02" rain here. Saturday night, a small thunderstorm was to the southwest but only received 0.02" rain here. It did provide some nice lightning though. Merge of 5 photos (f/5.6, 5 seconds, ISO 200, FL 24mm).
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Sunday night, 23 August, there was anothing good lightning show from a thunderstorm west of Oracle. This 11 seconds video (normal speed) taken with an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max shows some of the continuous lightning from the storm.
Click to view video
This is a merge of 12 photos (f/5.6, 5 seconds, ISO 200, FL 24mm).
Click or tap on image for larger version
Thursday, 27 August, in the late afternoon there was a severe thunderstorm in the area. Got this iPhone 15 Pro Max photo (0.5X lens, cropped) of a full rainbow.
Storms continued that night, but only received 0.02" rain here from the storm. I took these lightning photos using the D850 DSLR (f/5.6, 5 seconds, ISO 200, FL 24mm). I first aimed toward a storm in the western sky for this merge of 4 photos.
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I then aimed towards a different storm in the northern sky for this merge of 6 photos.
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