I decided to go to the airport and get some pictures at night! I think I got some awesome shots...


I've been working swings (3 P.M. to 11 P.M.) so this was before night actually fell. Here the Chinooks are leaving.


Another.


No need for an explanation.


Here is a Harrier. I have never seen one before in real life so that made my day!


Because our Taxiways and Runways were not built to handle the thrust from the Harrier taking off Vertically, it had to taxi just like a "normal" airplane. So needless to say I didn't get to see it do anything "cool".


Takeoff.


Flyby.


T-38 staying in ground effect. I know I might have uploaded another shot similar to this.


Second one taking off.


T-38 flyby.


OK, my first night shot! This is a Mig-17. I know you can't see much but my point of uploading this is to show the importance of holding the shutter open and a good tripod!


Here is the same aircraft (Mig-17) with no flash. The lighting is from the apron lights. I love the black sky behind it.


Over at Midland Airpark this was parked so I took a picture of this flying banana.


Well I decided to take a picture of the moon....


While I was at the airport there was a storm south of the airfield. The blue lights in the picture are the Taxiway edge lights and the orange glowing thing on the far left bottom side is the windsock. What is interesting about this is the storm was about 80 miles to the south of us.


Another cool shot. I like how the lightening crosses from left to right until it hits.


This is my favorite shot of lightening! Now this took absolutely NO talent what so ever to capture! 100% genuine LUCK! So I'm going to tell you what I did. I put my camera on Auto and put it on a tripod. I then pointed it in a direction where there was a lot of lightening. I then hit the shutter release and it takes the picture keeping the shutter open for 16 seconds (occasionally 12 seconds). Like I said, this was 100% LUCK that the bolt of lightening struck dead center of the picture the exact moment I was taking the picture!


This is what happens when you hold the shutter open for 16 seconds waiting for a strike and it doesn't do it. Most of my pictures came out like this. But its worth the wait when you can catch a bolt of lightening.


Not my favorite shot, but it was neat how this bolt looked like it was going to hit the ground but then suddenly changed its mind and went back in the air. Another note is the long then light streak at the bottom of the picture are cars going down the highway that runs just south of our airfield. As I said before that storm was about 80 miles south of the airport so it was a bit strange to look straight up and see stars and the moon but lightening (with no thunder) surrounding you. Perhaps it was like this in Memphis but I wouldn't know because of all the trees obscuring the horizon.