Sunrise, March 2009
The deck on the back of our house faces due south, but the best views are to the east. This sunrise was taken in March 2009. There are some interesting wave structures in the clouds towards the top of the picture. Steam can be seen rising from Plant Bowen, a coal-fired Georgia Power plant at Euharlee, Georgia. They are the dark, smokey-looking structures just to the right of the bright clouds where the sun is rising. The steam plumes are actually white, but look dark because the sun is behind them. The fact that the steam is white does not mean that the steam is without pollution. The plant gets its cooling water from the Etowah River, which flows into Rome, where it joins with the Oostanaula River to form the Coosa River. The Coosa is not visible from our deck, but it is in the foreground a couple of miles as the crow flies. We can sometimes see fog over the river, but not the river itself. Just downstream to the right from the area in the picture, the Coosa River flows past Plant Hammond, another Georgia Power plant. If we cut some trees behind our house, we’ll be able to see it, too.
That is a wonderfully photographed sunrise. I actually like the dark appearing plumes of the coal fired power plant.
We’re as much in a hole as you’re up on a mountain. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a sun rise or set from our house. I’ve seen some very good ones in a few places on the drive to and from Athens, but it’s only because there is a pasture with lots of open space. None of that is to compare when you can really look down on a sunrise (or sunset).
We have quite a few sunrise pictures that I plan to post later. No sunsets, though. The sun sets behind the mountain.
I also plan to post something about an amazing optical display that occurred over Huntsville back in October. You can see sundogs pretty often, but this had just about every possible refraction/reflection effect you could imagine. I got some pictures, but a NASA employee got a better one. I’ll post my pictures and a link as soon as I can.