Pitch black

[Kevnool]

I,m not joking here in broken hill its 3.25pm and the sky is completely BLACK dust is that thick you cant see 6 inches in front of you...


AMAZING never seen this before the 1974 eclipse were in total darkness.
pictures from phone will come soon.

Scray suff for all the travellers on the road.

My house is full of dust through the house.

Gotta go back and keep an ear to the radio.

Bad times Kev.

[Kevnool]

The sky was Absolutly pitch black for 5 mins now its returned to a dark red outside you may say we got a martian dust storm.

This hasnt happened since the 1950s out here.
I,m stoked.

[Kevnool]

Heres the pics there from a phone so the pics are small.
Sorry about the quality.
Cheers Kev.

[BerrieK]

Hey Kev, I heard about the duststorm on the jjj news while driving to pick kids up form school. Did you get any piccies? Would love to see some.

Kerrie

edit: do'h! Theres pics there now. Holy smokes Kev that looks might eerie!

[DavidU]

AMAZING ! Great shot Kev. Thats one hellava dust storm.
Make sure none of that dust settles on your scope mirrors.

[Kevnool]

Nunber 4 Kerrie is the streetlight 30 mtrs away.
At least you can see out there now but its still brilliant red.
Cheers Kev.

[Kevnool]

Heres the shot now of the one with number 4 the street light in it.
Cheers Kev.

[TrevorW]

Hope you've got a good broom

[Kevnool]

More like a air compressor to blow it out.
Will clean it all up tomorrow.
Cheers Kev.

[Esseth]

Damn that looks nuts, i'd love to have been there.

[Kevnool]

The wind is heading east Alan you may get some of this.
It puts observing on hold.
Cheers Kev.

[stephenb]

Wow Kev, that's incredible :eyepop: How often does this happen?

[Kevnool]

Dust storms are quite common here.
But this one is extreme and it is still very bad here.
Cheers Kev.

[kinetic]

Tacked this on to Kev's thread....

This is Broken Hill today , this pic from a relative in town.
3:45pm

They lost the Victorian grid connection too last night at 6pm.
Apparently 5 pylons/towers have been blown over.
Dad said they had started up some gen plants to supply the town
as it gets restored.

Two miners also spent the day in the cage
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26110641-5005962,00.html

Steve

[Kevnool]

Awesome event Steve you should be here.
Hundreds of thousands tons of top soil must have been lost in SA.
Lets see who else ends up with it.
Cheers Kev.

[Quark]

Sorry Kev didn't see your thread before I posted mine. Pretty amazing stuff, they put the High School in lockdown and wouldn't release the kids unless a parent collected them personally from the school hall.

Cheers
Trevor

[jjjnettie]

Great pics Kev.

[Kevnool]

Check it out it didnt take long to post it on you tube.
Its still awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrlD22HwPvI

Cheers Kev.

[Quark]

Thats a beauty Kev, if I hadn't been in it I wouldn't have believed it. Can't remember anything remotely like this happening before.

[Kevnool]

As far as i can remember Trevor the sky was last blacked out in the late 50s.
Just shows you how bad this country is in drought.
Cheers Kev.

[acropolite]

Scary stuff Trev, we've been getting dust from recent mainland storms settling here in Tassie.

[bloodhound31]

I tell you who has ended up with it!!! Bloody Canberra!!:eyepop:

I half expected one of these :rover2: to drive by...

Baz.

[JohnG]

We got it here too, Baz

Plus as an extra got pounded with golf ball sized hail as well, everything is a dirty red now :eyepop:

Cheers

[MrB]

Can remember a huge dust storm when I was a kid in Kalgoorlie, was a huge wall coming toward us, then engulfing us. Scarey stuff for a kid... but it was nowhere near this bad! :eyepop:

Anyone know if there has been any satellite imagery released?
Have seen satellite images of smoke from large fires before, so surely.....

[Inmykombi]

Wow, I have never seen a dust storm as bad as that one.

I hope it clears for you folks soon.

Was that the Sun in one of the Photos?

[Ric]

You just can't pick the weather at the moment dust storm followed by a massive thunderstorm down my way.

judging by the weather station data I'd say Sydney is the next port of call for this weird front.

[Kevnool]

That was a streetlight Geoff in the pic.
It blew wind and dust here till the early hours of the morning.
now i got to clean all this dust up.

No sense trying to ring up for a steam vac man to come around as every person here is probably thinking along the same lines.

Cheers Kev.

[BerrieK]

Well guys we can consider ourselves lucky that we don't live in one of the better known desert countries.

My hubbie was given a warning from a collegue recently regarding the contents of dust 'over there'. Due to the extreme dry, the number of animals defecating in the desert and the custom of people being a bear in the woods (ie does a bear poo in the woods? do people poo in the desert? Well yeah of course, there aren't any public toilets or anything now are there?) there is a heap of dessicated faeces in the dust. In an average 12 month deployment you can breathe in the equivalent of a chokito bar (yep, funny choccie bar to choose I know) of poo - so make sure you cover you mouth / nose when its dust to filter it out.

YUK

We really are the lucky country here in Australia in so many ways.

Kerrie

[Kevnool]

I am guilty for this crime as theres no town or service station every 40 klm,s away from a service station,

Also overgrazing will come into the equation, well theres not much green pickings out here.

But anyway we live in the driest continent on earth and it has to be expected but boy it was a show indeed.


My son was out of town 5klm,s walking around the bush with 4 of his mates when it hit so they tried to run back to there cars and got caught in the darkness and as he said lost, Till the worst of it was all over then he rang me and all he wanted was a shower when he came back home and i expliained to him this is what it is like in a solar eclipse ( beside the dust).

Cheers Kev.

[RB]

Wow Kev and Steve, I can't believe how dark it got at BH.
Thanks for sharing.

Amazing stuff !

[lacad01]

Gee thanks for the details, don't think I'm ever going to look at chocolate bars in the same way again :lol:

[AstralTraveller]

By now everyone has probably seen some pics of the dust. This video is pretty good.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/youtube.htm?v=BrlD22HwPvI

[sheeny]

Ah... you've already posted it!:thumbsup:

Al.

[Quark]

Hi Kev,

Been studying the progress of the next high pressure system all day and also the animated satellite images. As crap as it was last night it is looking like it may be a good imaging night tonight. I reckon by midnight this high should be close enough to Broken Hill to push the jet stream down far enough for some semi bonza seeing . Might be wrong but I have vacuumed out the dome and am preparing my equipment to give it a go.

Cheers
Trevor

[bones]

Hey Trev
How much dust was actually in there?

[Quark]

Hi Bones, well I emptied the vacuum cleaner three times, then went over everything with a damp cloth. Kept wringing out the cloth in a bucket of water. I have been in the habit, for a while now, of pulling heavy plastic bags over my power supplies and electronics, so no dust got into them. The dust was a bit like red talcum powder. The ground floor of my observatory was much the same with a layer of red dust over everything. Spent the afternoon cleaning it all up.

Tonight I have been imaging and have some very nice data, will take me about 8 hrs to process it and I will post it tomorrow.

Cheers
Trevor

[Kevnool]

Go for it Trevor , looks great outside at the moment.

Stark contrast to last night.

Cheers Kev.

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop:nice pics Kev we have had lots of those dust storms here too but not quite that bad :screwy:
Im glad im not the one doing your housework his week ;)

[Nightskystargaz]

Kev,

That dust gets all over the place, I hope it does not last long.

:thanx:,

Tom

[Kevnool]

I,m Sadie the cleaning lad----no man.

Have vacuum will travel.

Cheers Kev.

[Kevnool]

Hi Tom the dust is a pain but we experience them in our spring and summer.

Its is over now but the east coast of australia got a taste of it yesterday as our other IIS menbers will tell you.

Clear skies here again even Trevor imaged last night that how clear it was last night.

This dust could probably make it to New Zealand we will wait and see.

Cheers Kev.

[Kevnool]

The wind is gusting again today and guess what theres dust on the horizon again ,dont think it will be as bad as the other day though.

Cheers Kev.

[astro_nutt]

WOW!!!..Fantastic photos Kev...reminds me of the dust storm we had over Melbourne in the early 80's....welcome to Mars!!!

[DavidU]

Kev, here is a pic of the dust storm we had in Melbourne in 1983
http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/dsm31.jpg

[stephenb]

*cough* *cough* yes, I remember that one well, David. I was in high school and the school was quite high in elevation so they must have seen it coming. So what did the school do? They dismissed the entire school and 300 students went out into the open just as it hit. I rememeber trying to find some protection from it as we were standing a block away from the school. The school copped a hiding for their actions, I do remember that much.'


Great image, David.

Kev, I heard a news report that similar conditions are predicted on Saturday?

[jjjnettie]

I remember that one David. Extraordinary image.

[Kevnool]

Yep shes a beauty just rolling in.

Quite like the black and white pics.

If todays dust storm again gets worse i,ll post more pics.

May get over to sydney again.

Broken Hill is becoming an early warning station for dust storms on the east coast.

Cheers Kev.

[Kevnool]

Its here now.
On saturday as well oh well will be inside anyway watching the grand final.

Cheers Kev.

[Kevnool]

I,m Sorry to keep bumping this thread but the skies are Red again in Broken Hill today at 12.45.

Heres pics of today 25-09-09.

Its heading Eastcoast way again.

Cheers Kev.

[stephenb]

bump away! kepp posting them Kev, they're incredible to look at (from a distance).;)

[snowyskiesau]

Bugger! And I've just spend a couple of hours with a pressure washer cleaning down the front of the house :mad2: