Video from BMLCam1 May 14/15, 2013

Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC has just uploaded a video from our up-graded BMLCam1 located on Jonas Ridge, NC and overlooking Brown Mountain.

YouTube video of May 14/15, 2013 BMLCam1

The 4 minute video is composed of 8 hours worth of 30-second time exposure still shots over the night of May 14 & 15, 2013.  BMLCam1 is owned, maintained and operated by Professor Caton for Appalachian State University.

The video clearly shows vehicle headlights on NC Highway 181 at the Brown Mountain Lights overlook, stars in the night sky, airplanes, flashing communication tower lights, and miscellaneous stationary electric lights in the valleys beyond Brown Mountain.  While no unexplained lights are visible in the video, the plan is to run the camera as often as possible to look for unexplained lights or light phenomena.  Additional telephoto lens upgrades are planned.

Wiseman's View 25Apr13

Last night's full moon rising above Table Rock Mountain was photographed.  In addition, distant city lights and other landmarks in the Catawba River Valley east of Brown Mountain were also photographed.

Full Moon Rising over Table Rock Mountain

Sunset was 8:04 pm

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/3.5, 1/30 second, ISO-400

 

Full Moon and City Lights from Wiseman's View

Brown Mountain is the flat-topped mountain in the middle of the image.  The dark foreground ridge is the east rim of Linville Gorge with the north slope of Table Rock Mtn to the right and the south slope of Hawksbill Mtn to the left.  City lights of Lenoir and the surrounding area are visible between Brown Mountain and the distant horizon.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/3.5, 1/30 second, ISO-400

 

 

Landmarks Visible Looking East from Wiseman's View

The Google Data Center south of Lenoir (21 miles away) can be seen

just above the second "a" in the word Data.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/18, 1/200 second, ISO-400

 

Landmarks Visible Looking East from Wiseman's View

The Google Data Center (21 miles away) and numerous other buildings

in the Lenoir/Gamewell/Hudson area are visible is this late afternoon image.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/14, 1/200 second, ISO-400

 

Landmarks Visible Looking East from Wiseman's View

The Google Data Center (21 miles away), numerous other buildings, and

Hibriten Mtn (24 miles away) are visible in the Lenoir area in this late afternoon image.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/8, 1/400 second, ISO-250

Telephoto Photography 17Apr13

Between rain showers this morning, I was able to get some spectacular photos from the location of our BMLCam1 on Jonas Ridge, NC.  Both natural and manmade landmarks are readily identifiable.

View looking east showing Brown, Adams, & Hibriten Mountains

Brown Mountain (7 mi away) is the long flat topped ridge in the middle of the image, Adams Mountain (8.8 mi away) is the small domal shaped peak just to the left of Brown Mountain, & Hibriten Mountain (22.5 mi away) is the domal shaped peak on the skyline almost directly above & beyond Adams.  Ripskin Ridge is the dark tree-covered ridge in the foreground.  NC Highway 181, including the Brown Mountain Overlook (seen just to the left of center of the image, 2.1 mi away), follows the backbone of Ripskin Ridge.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/10, 1/250 second, ISO-100

 

Telephoto view of Brown, Adams, & Hibriten Mountains

The left sloping north end of Brown Mountain (7 mi away) is visible in the center of the image, with Adams Mountain (8.8 mi away) immediately behind & to the left of Brown Mountain.  Barely-visible communication towers atop Hibriten Mountain (22.5 mi away) are visible in the distance.  The flat tree covered Little Chestnut Ridge with Forest Service Road 4099 can be seen in the foreground.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/13, 1/800 second, ISO-800

 

View looking east with Brown, Adams, & Hibriten Mountains

A tractor-trailer truck can be seen parked at the Brown Mountain Overlook on NC Highway 181 (2.1 mi away) in the lower left corner of the image.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera, f/7.1, 1/250 second, ISO-100

 

Communication towers atop Hibriten Mountain (22.5 mi away)

The tall tower on the left is lighted with a flashing white light both day & night.  Compare with night time images previously posted on this blog.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera mounted on MEADE EXT-125EC 5" Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope, f/15, 1/60 second, ISO-250

 

Communication towers atop High Peak (22 mi away)

The tall tower on the left is lighted with a flashing white light both day & night. Compare with night time images previously posted on this blog.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera mounted on MEADE EXT-125EC 5" Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope, f/15, 1/60 second, ISO-200

 

Municipal Water Tower in the Valdese-Drexel area (~22 mi away)

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera mounted on MEADE EXT-125EC 5" Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope, f/15, 1/60 second, ISO-400

 

Brown Mountain Overlook on NC Highway 181 (2.1 mi away)

A passengar car, 3 display signs,  & a trash can are visible in the center of the image, while the guard rail along Highway 181 can be seen stretching completely across the image.

Canon EOS REBEL T3i DSLR camera mounted on MEADE EXT-125EC 5" Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope, f/15, 1/60 second, ISO-640

 

 

Today's photographs clearly show easily identifiable mountain peaks, communication towers, a water tower and the Brown Mountain Overlook on NC Highway 181.  These telephoto- and telescope-assisted images taken from the site of our BMLCam1 on Jonas Ridge conclusivelly demonstrate the sources of some of the man-made lights visible at night from this observation site.  Comparing these images with some of the night time images previously poseted on this blog shows a clear connection.

March 23, 2013 Observation

On Saturday evening, March 23, 2013, Charles Braswell & I met Mike Fischesser and about 15 of his TASSC kids for an hour of observations from the back deck of a Kistler Highway (NC 105) house, which looks up Linville Gorge from near the mouth of the gorge (see attached image).  The Kistler Highway house has been chosen as the location for our next full-time BML Camera (BMLCam2)---to be installed soon.

Linville Gorge from Kistler Highway (NC 105) Home Site

Looking North with prominent Shortoff Mtn on the right

Canon EOS REBEL T3i Digital SLR Camera, 18 mm, f/3.5, 1/5 sec

March 23, 2013  8:05 pm

Binoculars, spot lights, a Canon REBEL EOS digital camera and a tripod-mounted Canon VIXIA HFG20 nighttime digital video camera were employed.  During the observation, a single white light was periodically seen slowly moving upward on Shortoff Mtn, eventually stopping near the top, and moments later was joined by an orange light, which was then observed at the same location until we ended our observation about 45 minutes later.  We interpret the white light to be that of a solo hiker ascending the Mountain-To-Sea Trail on the south flank of the mountain to the popular backcountry campsite on the summit, at which point the hiker started a campfire (the orange light).  These were the only lights we saw in or near Linville Gorge last night.  The weather was high cloud cover and fair with only a gentle wind.  Smoke from the Kistler Highway house 
fireplace/woodstove occasionally drifted between us & the gorge, providing some strong, well-developed light beams from our handheld spotlights (coon-hunting type spot lights).  At times the beams appeared to streak nearly all the way to Shortoff Mtn from the house.  The video will be made available later.

Additional nighttime video observation is also planned from the Kistler Highway house---we expect some great photography from this excellent observation site.  We hope to also conduct our own staged light tests on the Mountain-To-Sea Trail, as well as the Wolf Pit Trail, to the summit of Shortoff Mtn---also Pinnacle, Hawksbill, & Gingercake Mtns, as well as overlooks along the Kistler Highway.

Meeting of Brown Mountain Lights Research Team

Our Brown Mountain Lights Research Team held a mini-symposium meeting Friday night, March 22 at the home of Cato and Susan Holler. The gathering provided the opportunity to review our progress for the past year as well as our plans for the future. Guest speaker Matt Elliott entertained with his light encounters in Linville Gorge. Everyone left with a better appreciation of the teams efforts and progress to date. We all feel that if our next 12 months are as full of discovery as the past 12 months have been, we may actually crack this nut!

BML Cam1 Video Feb 11-12, 2013

The first video from our Brown Mountain Lights Camera # 1 has just been posted on YouTube by Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.

Car lights, airplane lights, commucation tower lights, and city lights are visible!

BML Cam1 Feb 11-12, 2013

Nice video Dan! I saw the same lights in the sequence of stills I put together from the camera last month. The lights moving horizontally below the horizon are vehicle lights on NC Highway 181 along Ripskin Ridge. The moving lights above the horizon are airplanes (yes there are two lighted airports just on the other side of Brown Mountain). Finally, stationary, but repeatedly blinking lights, are communication tower lights in the valleys beyond Brown Mountain. All others are city lights.

Mystery Lights, Cars, Railroads & Electricity

Mystery Lights and The Arrival of Cars, Railroads and Electricity

in Catawba Valley, NC

 The remarkable timing between the first documented reports of mystery lights seen over the top of Brown Mountain and the first arrival of cars, railroads and electricity in Catawba Valley to the south and east has been mentioned in several BML publications (Mansfield, 1922; Brown, 1964; Phifer, 1982; Dunning, 2010).  The first documented reports of mystery lights come from Lafayette Wiseman c1854 (Parris, 1971 and 1972), Stokes Pendland c1882 (Babington, 1927), and the numerous sightings from Cold Springs from c1897 until c1917 (Charlotte Daily Observer, 1913; Scott, 1915; Wilson, 1915; Loven, 1916; Elam, 1916).  It is specifically these early sightings from Cold Springs that gave rise to the ‘Legend of the Brown Mountain Lights.’

Compare the timing of these sightings to the fact that the first railroad in western North Carolina was constructed in 1858 along the Catawba River from Salisbury to 4 miles east of Morganton; the first electric lights in the area appeared in 1888 when Hickory Tavern (later Hickory) became one of the first communities in North Carolina to acquire electricity; and the first automobiles arrived in North Carolina about 1898.  Henry Ford's Model T, the first mass produced automobile in the US, was produced from 1908 until 1927, during which time 15 million were sold.  The timing between these two phenomena (first sightings of mystery lights and the first arrival of cars, railroads and electricity) seems more than coincidental and instead strongly suggests the two are directly related.  Note that most mystery lights, specifically those seen from Cold Springs (that started the BML legend in the first place), were reported approximately 10-30 years after the arrival of electric lights in Hickory, which is directly east of Brown Mountain!  Over the next 100 years, as the human population and the use of electric lights expanded explosively, the reports of mystery lights also greatly increased; again strongly suggesting a direct link between the two.