Photos of Planes and Contrails (That you took yourself)

No, I took the first and then was photographing other subjects in between and noticed that the trail seemed to have dissipated into what you see in the second. Given that the sky was otherwise clear of cloud I'm reasonably sure that the second image represent what remains of the initial trail. The two images were taken at slightly different locations the second approximately 1400 m to the SE of the first.
 
No, I took the first and then was photographing other subjects in between and noticed that the trail seemed to have dissipated into what you see in the second. Given that the sky was otherwise clear of cloud I'm reasonably sure that the second image represent what remains of the initial trail.

Results of my quick analysis agree with this. The first photo is zoomed into the plane. It does not show the full length of its contrail, but provides enough details to confirm its identification on FR24:
Screen shot 2015-02-05 at 10.38.01.png
The ANZ175 Dreamliner is heading West.
In the second photo the camera also faces West, as confirmed by a StreetView image from approximately the same location:
Screen shot 2015-02-05 at 13.10.58.png
Therefore the broad linear cloud does line up with the ANZ175 flight track.

I remember seeing contrails that were spreading rapidly, probably due to a strong vertical wind shear, so they were looking like a fish skeleton in just a few minutes. They also did not last long afterwards. However, there was a "backbone" along the original trail, which in this case seems to dissipate completely.

PS I think that this discussion should belong to a different thread.
 
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I took this picture last month at around 4pm when the sun was going down. The contrail almost looks like something is falling from the sky and burning, leaving a smoke trail behind

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Mostly just short trails during a few hours pottering at the allotment on Sunday. This is about as long as they got

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It was pretty dry overhead as the time with increasing RH to the south where this flight is coming from

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I looked for it again a minute or two later after it had passed over and there was no sign, just clear blue skies.
 
I don't think it's APU exhaust, as it was only there for a few seconds. In a sequence of photos from 1:36:47, 1:36:57, 1:37:01, and 1:37:15, it only appears in the middle two photos, so it was leaving a trail for between 4 and 30 seconds

Here's the full set of photos:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/metabunk/sets/72157650213360930/


It's discharge from an outlet known as a drain mast, which discharges grey water from the sinks in the galleys and toilets. Lav waste is (obviously) tanked and removed on the ground.

The tubes are prone to clog quite easily - even pulpy OJ can block them, and pax who don't use their sick-bag...
 
@Cloudspotter your charts show why I saw pretty much the opposite of you on Sunday here in the south. Lots of trails in the morning when I went out on my bike:

image.jpg image.jpg

Then by mid-afternoon the sky was back to clear blue as the humid air moved away and we got the drier air you had earlier. (No pics but you know what blue sky looks like!)
 
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Wish I had a better camera in my office today. This was a sunset that was definitely enhanced by contrails. (Also a few reflections of the lights which are almost impossible to avoid in this building.)

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The two trails towards the right separated out into little "smoke puff" clouds.

Then a few minutes later this "missile trail" was visible due west (digital zoom hence the poor quality, plus more strip lights)...

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Actually a cargo flight some 60 miles away:

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I just got a 2x teleconverter to make my 500mm a 1000mm. It's possible to get good results with it, but it's a bit fiddly to use. No autofocus is a pain, and it's a few stops darker.



 
Does that mean an effective 1600mm of zoom capacity (since, I believe, the Canon 7D is a 1.6 crop) ? :eek:
[500 x 1.6 = 800 x 2 = 1600]
 
Does that mean an effective 1600mm of zoom capacity (since, I believe, the Canon 7D is a 1.6 crop) ? :eek:
[500 x 1.6 = 800 x 2 = 1600]

In theory yes, although "crop" is not really the same as "magnify".

Depending on lighting, it's actually sometimes better to use the 500mm, and just digitally zoom it later.
 
In theory yes, although "crop" is not really the same as "magnify".

Depending on lighting, it's actually sometimes better to use the 500mm, and just digitally zoom it later.
Agreed...teleconverters can be great if you have a ton of light.

Last month I rented two Tamron (!) 150-600mm lenses (one for full-frame Nikon D810, and one for 1.5 crop Sony a77)
and was impressed...the Sony version was often outperforming my pricy Sony 70-400mm + 2x teleconverter.

Of course, whenever a plane flew over, I had a smaller lens on...

Plane : Contrail r.jpg
 
I did not expect to see many contrails on my trip to Israel. Presumably due to political reasons, there are almost no commercial flights crossing its territory, whereas the international flights originating or terminating in the Tel Aviv airport go straight toward or from the Mediterranean Sea, so they are well below the contrail altitudes while flying over the land.

On FR24, I could have found only one airline that flies across the Israeli territory, Royal Jordanian. While visiting Tel Aviv on February 16, 2015, I've spotted its two consecutive flights leaving contrails:
IMG_1665.JPG
The top trail is RJA111 and the bottom one is RJA125, the trail-less plane near the palm tree is ACA84.
Screen shot 2015-02-21 at 17.09.28.png

I have spotted RJA111 a minute before it began to produce a contrail. In the full-size image it is possible to recognise its registration number JY-BAA on the port side tip of the wing:
IMG_1658.JPG
Interestingly, by accident or intentionally, the plane paused its climb and even dipped down a bit above Tel Aviv, so its contrail appeared when it already was above the sea:
IMG_1663.JPG
Below is the JRA111 flight track from FlightAware seen from approximately the same location on Google StreetView:
Jaffa_JRA111.jpg

It is not just the Royal Jordanian Airlines who spray Israel with hazardous dihydrogen monoxide, the Israeli Air Force does it too with great zeal;):
IMG_1588.JPG
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No contrails today in the Sierras at and around 31,000 feet - flight going into SFO, San Francisco airport.




Tried a to get some contrails and identify a flight. No contrails today. Found an aircraft on http://www.flightradar24.com/ coming near. I went outside to get a photo, it had passed. Another aircraft was flying by, took the photo, I went back to Flight Radar and found this flight. There is a delay of the data, think it is 5 minutes for FAA data.
 
A nice illustration this morning of how thin the layer of air that will form contrails can be. This plane flew almost overhead, suddenly leaving a thick trail lit up by the sunrise, which stopped just as quickly. Another plane with a short non-persistent trail crossed behind it:

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The one with a contrail was climbing through about 28,000ft as it left the trail. The one without was at 32,000ft:

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A little later this morning, more trails stopping abruptly, from planes climbing through the same level. These ones were a few minutes old and being spread by the wind:

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It looks like we had 3 B-2's pass over Bakersfield at about 1:30 pm pacific time. They came from the direction of Edwards AFB heading NNW. Nothing showed up on the flight trackers that I could find to confirm their origin.

DSCF1079.JPG DSCF1086.JPG

Shortly after passing over Bakersfield, they made a turn to the West and I lost sight of them.

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This was the best zoomed image I was able to get. They blended in with the sky quite well.

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Dropping the brightness, adding contrast, and inverting the colors was about the best I was able to do to bring out the shape. Perhaps someone better at enhancing photos than I am might be able to do better?

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It was an interesting day for skywatching in Amsterdam today. While taking pictures of a cloud front coming in from the west, this contrail shadow appeared parallel to another regular one.

Cloud front and shadow contrail.jpg

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Yesterday, 27th February, there was a cloudy day, but I spotted a few trails in the gaps between clouds. The two Air France planes followed practically the same route at different altitudes:View attachment 11677
AFR378 Airbus A340 contrail at 34,000 ft dissipated through the Crow instability, whereas AFR54 Boeing-777 initially solid contrail at 30,000 ft developed a few gaps in the middle.
View attachment 11671
Each contrail retained its features when the planes reappeared in a few minutes from behind the clouds:
View attachment 11676

A few minutes later another Air France Airbus A340 (AFR356) passed by the same route at the same altitude of 34,000 ft as the first one:
View attachment 11670
Not surprisingly, it also had produced the hybrid contrails with the Crow instability in them:
View attachment 11675

Below are the zoomed pictures of the three planes:
View attachment 11674View attachment 11673View attachment 11672
 
Here's some images of condensation cloud taken at the Avalon airshow yesterday.

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The first one shows cloud formation in the intake of an F16 preparing for take off.

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An F/A 18

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An F16 with two sets of condensation cloud
 
Perhaps this image doesn't belong here but it is quite an interesting effect caused by a toroidal vortex formed by ground based pyrotechnics during a WWI aerial battle re-enactment. The smoke ring rose a considerable distance into the air, and in fact the remains of a previous ring can still be seen in the top right hand corner of the image

IMG_0330.jpg
 
@Mick West
It appears that all images have disappeared from my previous post (#552). Perhaps it was because I've posted there a mixture of the full and thumbnail images. If the attachments cannot be recovered, please delete this and the present posts, as I have already deleted the originals and will not be able to re-post them again.
 
@Mick West
It appears that all images have disappeared from my previous post (#552). Perhaps it was because I've posted there a mixture of the full and thumbnail images. If the attachments cannot be recovered, please delete this and the present posts, as I have already deleted the originals and will not be able to re-post them again.

I'm very sorry, but it seems like there's some kind of bug in the attachment system. I'll look into it, and see if the images are in a backup.

....

For some reason they were deleted, but I did find them. Very odd. I shall investigate.
 

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I have been at a meeting near Windsor, halfway between the Heathrow airport and @Trailblazer's abode. Not a single contrail for two days. I've spotted a couple of trail-less planes flying at high altitudes and plenty of low flying ones:
IMG_2591.JPG IMG_2622.JPG IMG_2635.JPG IMG_2654.JPG IMG_2666.JPG IMG_2708.JPG IMG_0795.JPG IMG_2760.JPG
 
those are some wicked blue skies. (Guess which pic i like best : )
That funny looking plane in pic 7? We get lots of red kites around here, they had disappeared due to being shot/poisoned by farmers mostly, but they were reintroduced some years ago and have been very successful. I've never managed to get a decent photo of one though!

And yes, it has been very poor contrail weather - lots of blue skies :)
Relative humidity chart at 30,000ft for noon yesterday: very dry indeed!
image.jpg
 
those are some wicked blue skies. (Guess which pic i like best : )
It is probably the effect of zooming on a small patch of the sky with AUTO settings. The most of the photos had been taken yesterday afternoon when we had some free time. I was walking in the park and tried to take a decent picture of red kite, practicing on the passing planes.
 
Perhaps this image doesn't belong here but it is quite an interesting effect caused by a toroidal vortex formed by ground based pyrotechnics during a WWI aerial battle re-enactment. The smoke ring rose a considerable distance into the air, and in fact the remains of a previous ring can still be seen in the top right hand corner of the image

IMG_0330.jpg

nice ? how was Avalon for you out of 10? i did not go this time around yet could hear them Friday Saturday some souls in Frankston area 60 clicks over the bay were claiming was and earthquake due the rumble enhanced by low cloud base me thinks.
 
good to sea the red kite, (great photo) down nr Windsor, I've seen em around Swindon recently, looks like they like the M4 corridor. I can remember, only 20 or so years ago when they were very rare and you had to go to the mountains of central wales to see one
 
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