BML Cam1 Jonas Ridge Camera for July 2014

The Brown Mountain Lights Research Team's BML Cam1 sits atop a house on Jonas Ridge and overlooks Brown Mountain 7 miles to the east. It has been running intermittently since February 2013.

Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) installed and operates the camera as part of an on-going research project. Dr. Caton also installed and operates another research camera (BML Cam2) located at the southern end of Linville Gorge. The images from both cameras are compiled into nightly videos and posted on YouTube---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1" (or Camera 2) for the individual nightly videos. Both cameras are modified highly light-sensitive comet-hunting cameras.

To date, numerous lights have been recorded by Cam1, including: town/city/rural lights in the valleys beyond Brown Mountain, fireworks, communication tower lights, airplanes and helicopters, highway-vehicle lights, off-highway vehicle lights, stadium lights, and back-country user lights. Natural lights captured by the camera include stars, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the moon, lightning and fireflies.  Disappointingly, Cam1 has yet to record any support for mysterious or unknown lights in the Brown Mountain area.

BML Cam1 recorded 147 hours of nocturnal observation time on 20 nights during July 2014, resulting in 16,546 individual 30-second time-exposure images. This brings the totals over the past 18 months since start up in Feb 2013 to 2,335 hours of nocturnal observation time on 263 different nights resulting in 279,106 individual time-exposure images.

The following images are selected to show some significant features. Note that the camera position does not change during this sequence of images. Blurry or out-of-focus distant lights are caused by rising heat currents that distort the incoming light waves during the time exposures---lights that instantly flash on and off once produce sharp images.

 

  

July 4th sky rocket fireworks and MedEvac helicopter

The MedEvac helicopter flew northward above Brown Mountain and landed

at the Caldwell Memorial Hospital in downtown Lenoir. 

Approximately 45 minutes later, the helicopter took off from downtown Lenoir and flew back southward over the top of Brown Mountain.

 

 July 4th sky rocket fireworks

Same spot as before, 6 minutes later.

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

Double exposure due to image transition errors.

  

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

Double exposure due to image transition errors.

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

Double exposure due to image transition errors.

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

Possible cosmic ray strikes while lens window is totally blocked by rain.

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

Hot pixels or random excited pixels.

 

Light from vehicle/s on NC Hwy 181

on the east side of Ripshin Ridge

 

Possible helicopter taking off 

between downtown Lenoir and the Google Data Center

 

Probable lightning bug.

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

'Smear line' from bright airplane landing light.

 

Probable lightning bug or firefly 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BML Cam1 Jonas Ridge Camera for June 2014

The Brown Mountain Lights Research Team's BML Cam1 sits atop a house on Jonas Ridge and overlooks Brown Mountain 7 miles to the east. It has been running intermittently since February 2013.

Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) installed and operates the camera as part of an on-going research project. Dr. Caton also installed and operates another research camera (BML Cam2) located at the southern end of Linville Gorge. The images from both cameras are compiled into nightly videos and posted on YouTube---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1" (or Camera 2) for the individual nightly videos. Both cameras are modified highly light-sensitive comet-hunting cameras.

To date, numerous lights have been recorded by Cam1, including: town/city/rural lights in the valleys beyond Brown Mountain, communication tower lights, airplanes and helicopters, highway-vehicle lights, off-highway vehicle lights, stadium lights, and back-country user lights. Natural lights captured by the camera include bright stars, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the moon and lightning. Disappointingly, Cam1 has yet to record any support for mysterious or unknown lights in the Brown Mountain area.

BML Cam1 recorded 184 hours of nocturnal observation time on 27 nights during June 2014, resulting in 20,930 individual 30-second time-exposure images. This brings the totals over the past 17 months since start up in Feb 2013 to 2,372 hours of nocturnal observation time on 243 different nights resulting in 283,490 individual time-exposure images.

The following images are selected to show some significant features. Note that the camera position does not change during this sequence of images. Blurry or out-of-focus distant lights are caused by rising heat currents that distort the incoming light waves during the time exposures---lights that instantly flash on and off once produce sharp images.

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

The stacked line of lights on the lower right side of the image is due to the transition from the previous 30-second-time-exposure to the next exposure.

 

Distant cloud to ground lightning

 

Unannounced staged light test

Dr. Cato Holler, Jr., a member of our BML Research Team

camped at Bear Rocks

and shined his headlamp at several recorded times toward BML Cam1.

 

Light beam from headlight of vehicle

traveling south on NC Hwy 181 on Ripshin Ridge

 

 

 

 



BML Cam1 Jonas Ridge Camera for May 2014

The Brown Mountain Lights Research Team's BML Cam1 sits atop a house on Jonas Ridge and overlooks Brown Mountain 7 miles to the east. It has been running intermittently since February 2013.

Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) installed and operates the camera as part of an on-going research project. Dr. Caton also installed and operates another research camera (BML Cam2) located at the southern end of Linville Gorge. The images from both cameras are compiled into nightly videos and posted on YouTube---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1" (or Camera 2) for the individual nightly videos. Both cameras are modified highly light-sensitive comet-hunting cameras.

To date, numerous lights have been recorded by Cam1, including: town/city/rural lights in the valleys beyond Brown Mountain, communication tower lights, airplanes and helicopters, highway-vehicle lights, off-highway vehicle lights, stadium lights, and back-country user lights. Natural lights captured by the camera include bright stars, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the moon and lightning. Disappointingly, Cam1 has yet to record any support for mysterious or unknown lights in the Brown Mountain area.

BML Cam1 recorded 172 hours of nocturnal observation time on 24 nights during May 2014, resulting in 19,846 individual 30-second time-exposure images. This brings the totals over the past 16 months since start up in Feb 2013 to 2,188 hours of nocturnal observation time on 243 different nights resulting in 262,560 individual time-exposure images.

The following images are selected to show some significant features. Note that the camera position does not change during this sequence of images. Blurry or out-of-focus distant lights are caused by rising heat currents that distort the incoming light waves during the time exposures---lights that instantly flash on and off once produce sharp images.

 

Probable building fire in Lenoir

 

Lights due to processes internal to the camera

Image transition errors produced the band of faint lights across the lower portion of the image.

These are an exact but dim duplicate of the bright band of electric lights above Brown Mountain.

The dim vertical lines that connect the dim lights with their parent bright lights are 'smear lines' produced during the fly-in transition between the previous 30-second-exposure image and the next image.

Fireflies?

 

 

 

Staged Light test atop Brown Mountain Aug 20, 2014

Last night, Wednesday Aug 20, 2014, I hiked trails atop Brown Mountain for yet another staged light test.  My 520-lumen handheld spotlight and my 78-lumen 4-LED headlamp were both visible to our research camera on Jonas Ridge (BML Cam1). 

520-lumen spotlight on Bear Rocks

 

Bear Rocks atop Brown Mountain

Prominent, well-exposed, house-size boulders

35.91654 N; 81.76766 W

 

Image from Bear Rocks looking

toward BML Cam 1 on Jonas Ridge. 

The camera sits atop one of the lighted houses in Gingercake Acres

 

I drove to Chestnut Gap, bicycled FS Road 4099 the three miles to the north end of Brown Mountain, and then hiked to the prominently exposed Bear Rocks via the connector trail & ATV Trails 2, 8, 1B & 6; arriving at 10:24 pm.  In the first image above, my 520-lumen spotlight can be seen at the extreme right edge of the camera's field of view---6.7 miles from the camera.

 

Upon leaving Bear Rocks at 10:38 pm, I followed ATV Trail #2 back to the north end of Brown Mountain and arrived at my vehicle at 1:09 am.  On the way, I stopped along FS Rd 4099 at several clear views and shined my 78-lumen headlight toward BML Cam1, however only one such spot (at 5.6 miles from the camera) appeared within the field of view of the camera (see extreme left side of image below).

 

78-lumen 4-LED headlamp on FS Road 4099

 

The full nightly video can be seen at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxjP2LrdJLU

 

Such staged light tests help establish actual landmarks and the visibility of manmade lights commonly carried by back-country travelers.

 

ATV Lights on Brown Mountain August 16, 2014

Our Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1, positioned on Jonas Ridge, captured the headlights of a southward moving ATV on Trail #2 of the US Forest Services' Brown Mountain Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area on the evening of August 16, 2014.  There are 34 miles of maintained ATV trails atop Brown Mountain and they are open from April through October each year.  But only occassionally do nighttime riders access the rugged and remote Trail #2---which is the only trail where back-country user lights are visible from the popular observation sites, such as Jonas Ridge, the NC Hwy 181 Brown Mountain Overlook and Wiseman's View.  The following four screen shots from the August 16 nightly video show the changing position of the lights at 9:28, 9:38, 9:55 & 10:04 pm.  On the original video, the ATV is seen slowly weaving it's way along the crooked trail, eventually ending up for a 21 minute stop at the prominent and well exposed Bear Rocks before continuing southward and out of the field of view of the camera.  A detailed review of the location of Trail #2 as plotted on published Forest Service topo maps clearly shows that the lights are following the convoluted path of that trail.

 

ATV Headlights

August 16, 2014  9:28 pm

ATV Headlights

August 16, 2014  9:38 pm

 

ATV Headlights

August 16, 2014  9:55 pm

ATV Headlights

Augusut 16, 2014  10:04 pm

 

The original full video for August 16, 2014 can be viewed online at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAJMafJPKhc

 

The lights in question are visible for 57 minutes from 9:25 pm until 10:22 pm real time.  However, due to the time-lapse images and playing speed of the video, this corresponds to 0:21 to 1:18 video time.

 

Our research team has previously conducted staged light tests atop Brown Mountain that verify some of the positions of the lights seen in the August 16 video---however this was not one of our staged light tests.

 

Many people observing these lights from any of the popular observation sites would interpret them to be  the 'mysterious Brown Mountain Lights'.   However the Aug 16, 2014 video and the above images clearly demonstrate the extreme difficulty, if not the actual impossibility, of correctly differentiating between manmade and non-manmade noctural lights utilizing visible clues alone, especially for uninformed or mis-informed observers.

BML Cam2 Staged Light Tests July 14-15 & Aug 13-14, 2014

The Brown Mountain Lights Research Team's BML Cam2 sits in the yard of a house beside Old NC Hwy 105 (Kistler Memorial Highway) and looks up Linville Gorge. It has been running intermittently since October 2013.  As of March 31, 2014, Cam2 has recored 511 hours of nocturnal observation time on 105 different nights resulting in 30,000 individual time-exposure images.  Videos of the individual nigthly time-lapse images are posted on YouTube---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 2"

Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) installed and operates the camera as part of an on-going research project. Dr. Caton also installed and operates another research camera (BML Cam1) located on Jonas Ridge and overlooking Brown Mountain---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1" on YouTube.  Both cameras are modified highly light-sensitive comet-hunting cameras.

To date, numerous lights have been recorded by Cam2, including: airplanes, backcountry vehicle lights, and back-country hiker/camper lights. Natural lights captured by the camera include bright stars, meteors and lightning. Disappointingly, Cam2 has yet to record any support for mysterious or unknown lights in the lower Linville Gorge area.

 

Suspected hiker/camper lights in several different areas have occassinally been captured by Cam2.  To verify these suspicions, staged light tests were conducted by team members night hiking on the Wolf Pit Trail on July 14-15, 2014; and again, on the Pinch-In Trail on August 13-14, 2014.  Cam2 captured the handheld hiker lights both nights, verifying the earlier suspicions.

 

More details about these staged light tests are forthcoming, in the mean time however, the respective YouTube videos are highly informative---now we know exactly where these trails are in the camera's view and we know that hiker lights are highly visible from portions of each trail.

 

July 14-15, 2014  Ed Speer roundtrip on Wolf Pit Trail to summit of Shortoff Mtn (east rim of Linville Gorge)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGC4l74Ibus

Lightning at begining of video, hiker lights (0:31-1:15), scattered moonlight, camera lens halo.

 

August 13-14, 2014  Ed Speer, Cato Holler, Chris Holler roundtrip on Pinch-In Trail (west rim of Linville Gorge)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TOgK4CMJqI

Airplanes, camera lens halo, vehicles on Old Hwy 105 on Dogback Mtn, hiker lights (0:35-1:00).

Vehicle lights on Dogback Mtn soon after the hiker lights were ours too!!

 

As with all of our other staged light tests, these two light tests also strongly suggest that differentiating between distant nocturnal manmade lights and non-manmade lights is extremely difficult if not actually impossible for uninformed observers.