Sydney's blood-red sky

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Just woke up 5.45am 22/09/2009 to this blood-red sky caused by the dust-storm.

The view from our front balcony. Never, ever seen anything like it in Sydney.


Best,

Les D

[BerrieK]

Good morning Les!!

I woke up at 6am to a similar picture here in Orange, but not quite as spectactularly red as in your pics. It keeps alternating between errie red and errie brown with the big wind gusts blowing through. However, I think that it (the dust) has mostly blown through here during the night as it now seems to be raining mud!

We have a few boer goats who are usually white - the poor little buggers are now red, alongside my son's grey shetland pony. I know I'm not enjoying breathing it in inside, so I can only imagine how awful it is for al out feathered, furred, haired and scaled friends outside.

I can only imagine the sludge that will be washed into our (and everyone else's) rainwater tanks...ick

More icky weather forecast for a large area today - stay safe all!! It feels kinda apocolyptic doesn't it.

Kerrie

[TheCrazedLog]

I woke up and thought:

Right. Some fella has an absolute whopper of a telescope being delivered today.

So. Who is it guys? Cmon cmon cmon... someone's got something bloody massive. Own up :P

[Rick Petrie]

The Martians have landed and want their environment to look like home!!;)
Never seen it anything like this before!

[snowyskiesau]

At 5:30 couldn't see the other side of the road (4 lanes).
It's been interesting to watch the colour change from red to orange/yellow.

Shouldn't have spent yesterday dusting and mopping the house :mad2:

[mithrandir]

I was woken about 05:45 by the dust. That is sunrise here.
06:24 dsc01206s 0.3s f4.0 is pointed E at the sun. The bright spot is a street light.
06:25 dsc01207s 0.3s f4.5 is pointed roughly SE. The path light in it for colour reference is a halogen. One of those stark white ones with the blue filtered bulb.

[telecasterguru]

I'm in the eastern suburbs and things are turning yellow as the wind blows through. Haven't sen anything like this since I was in western Queensland in the early 80s.

Frank

[alan meehan]

Mars ATTACKS,same in newcastle youcan taste the dirt ,there goes our viewing night tonight,stay safe everyone.

[Kevnool]

I see you copped this dust as well and it probably will make its way to NZ.

How many homes are dust proof ?

My mop will be busy today.

BTW it looks like i took the right week off work. only to keep my house clean.

Cheers Kev.

[mithrandir]

The garage certainly isn't. The 4WD, nearly clean after the thunderstorm yesterday on the way home, is slightly less dusty than after 2 days of driving Nth Qld dirt roads.
SWMBO's black car is red.

[lacad01]

Pretty eerie getting up seeing the orange sky and the gritty taste of dust in lungs as well, aarrgh...

[Davros]

I am in Armidale for Uni and we are copping it as well, very eerie. You can certainly taste it in the air too. Car was parked outside so its is absolutely filthy.

[ChrisRS]

Is it too late to buy shares in a car wash business??:P

Chris

[AdrianF]

I am currently in Sydney (Waterloo) and I was surprised to see the sky the way it is at the moment. Just had a call from my daughter in Roma telling me about how frightened by the winds last night and this morning can't see more than 500 meters. We arrived in Sydney last night we just got off the plane and the airport was shutdown due to the electrical storm so we had to wait about an hour to retrieve our baggage. Not only did we have a plane ride but we also had an added bonus of a roller coaster ride aswell. Ahwell today is retail therapy day I am sure once I het to the astro shops I will forget about the dust.

Adrian

[Darth Wader]

Sure is eerie... reminds me of my family's homestead nestled beneath Olympus Mons, back in the days;)

[marc4darkskies]

My wife woke me up at 6:00 and by 6:01 I was in my observatory covering the scope and removing the camera. Sure hope everyone's got their optics well covered! Very eerie scene indeed!

Cheers, Marcus

[toryglen-boy]

we had hazy dust clouds here in Canberra to, although not to the same extent. my normaly emarld mica green car, was brown yesterday, and i mean "mad max" brown

:)

[Rick Petrie]

Found a current satellite image showing dust lane stretching from Wollongong to Coffs Harbour and northwesterly through to Queensland.

[kustard]

There were a few moving dirt mobiles on the road this morning ;)

[DavidU]

Yep ! Someone has bought a meter+ scope for sure.

[stephenb]

These images were sent to my wife from a work collegue in Sydney this morning.

The Harbour bridge and the ferrys are obvious, but I do not know the locations of the other 2 images. Perhaps some Sydneysiders may know.

Incredible pictures.

Sorry for the poor quality.

[Kevnool]

Great pics Stephen the dusty colours sort of make all these photos look as if it was all in a time gone by.

Cheers Kev.

[snowyskiesau]

I was just informed by a Canadian member of another forum, that the photo's of Sydney's dust storm were all faked by the media.

He went on to provided 'corrected' photos and a technical explanation of how the original photos were faked and how they didn't fool him. :screwy:

[lacad01]

Think the first one is Homebush station, no idea about the second...

[GTB_an_Owl]

my live skycam is eerie

http://www.gtbastrowise.com.au/weather/cumulus/camera1/main.htm


Terrigal NSW looking west

is your camera on RB ?

geoff

[renormalised]

Sorry guys:face:

[DavidU]

AH HA !!!!! Carl, spill the beans.........what have you bought?

[renormalised]

Well, that guy being Canadian, that explains everything:P:D:D

[renormalised]

Just had the last mirror put in place on my 15metre scope:P:P:D:D:eyepop:

[RB]

Great photos everyone.
What an amazing eerie event this is.

[lacad01]

:ashamed: ....umm, would a T-adaptor and T-ring I bought yesterday count? :whistle:

[AstralTraveller]

Yep, Wollongong is being slowly burried. The roads are brown, visiblility is poor and I'm sneezing. Time to hide in the airconditioned lab with its HEPA-filtered air.

[multiweb]

Hey Andrew, don't turn around but I think the dust even covered the moon pic on your avatar. Geez...it gets into everything doesn't it? ;)

[stephenb]

This is typical in this day and age. Everyone cries "it a fake". Want to hint at what forum it is?

[RB]

LOL Marc, you're right !

Actually I'm just uploading a photo to my site which I took this morning of some sunspots during the dust storm without using any filters.

I'll post a thread soon.

:)

[snowyskiesau]

It's a machinists forum. The thread was started in pretty much the same way as this one was, sort of a 'Wow! have a look at this!'
The response was a technical explanation (complete with histograms) as to why the picture was 'faked'.
I'd accept that the settings of the camera may have been tweaked to make the image look more like what we were actually seeing. I know my camera (Olympus C740) didn't want to play when I tried to take a few shots. It wouldn't focus and wanted me to use a flash. I decided 5:30AM pre coffee is no time to work out what all the knobs and dials are for. I'll leave it to the more technically savvy and/or caffeinated Sydneysiders to provide the shots.

[dpastern]

Note that Brisbanes skies have a strong orange cast to them as well.

Dave

[Paul Haese]

That lovely little low eminated right from South Oz. We got belted with rain, wind and hail. I heard that when we were being hit, that the far north Flinders Ranges had 90km winds. I think that when the low met the high pressure sitting over NSW the winds intensified and you have the result. Hope you all enjoyed the blue sunsets just like on Mars. Amazing pictures.

[h0ughy]

no wonder you take grerat shots Marcus - your on mars;)

[Tom Davis]

What an amazing dust storm! I've never seen anything like it! I hope everyone (and their equipment) is OK.

Tom

[Gallifreyboy]

Amazing pictures. Hopefully the picture below isn't tomorrow's image.

[norm]

:lol::lol:

I washed by car the other day for the 1st time only for it to be covered in bloody dust:mad2::shrug:

As for the dusting inside the house - its found its way everywhere.
Looks like its going to be full on spring cleaning thats for sure.:sadeyes::(:mad2:

[AstralTraveller]

It's been clear down here for a couple of hours. The wind has dropped and the sky is blue between the clouds. It was an interesting event but I'm glad it's over.

[Screwdriverone]

Nice Pic Les,

Looks like Doctor Emmett Brown from number 52 down the road seems to have hit 88 miles per hour on the way to work!

I think we all "saw some serious ****" this morning.

Cheers

Chris

[erick]

Some pretty amazing images.

How about the contrast in this one up on the ABC news site:-

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200909/r440991_2128016.jpg

[erick]

We've just managed a third of a rainbow. Maybe things get better from here? :shrug:

[DistroMan]

Wow, it was worse than I thought. :rofl:

[kustard]

LOL, going back to 1944 when the last big dust storm came through ;)

I hear that Sydney is relaxing some of the water restrictions to allow people to help clean up their houses etc. Not sure of the exact details so you may have to keep an ear out and you'll have to check if your area has any restrictions lifted.

[MortonH]

Here's my selection from our apartment in Sydney's Eastern suburbs.

The first one would normally show the CBD skyline!

Morton

[Phil]

Hear is two photo one taken on a nice day and one taken today.
Phil

[Liz]

Wow!! Both gorgeous pics though Phil.

[Screwdriverone]

Yes, I heard on the radio, that there will be NO fines for people using water to wash off the dust and that came from the Water Board CEO.

Wasn't the last dust storm November 5th 1955?? :)

Great SCOTT!

Cheers

Chris

[AdrianF]

Great photo. The view of the bridge is obscured from here so missed Godzilla:P.

Adrian

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol:

[Talyn]

The pics were all over the BBC yesterday. Very eerie, Sydney was almost a Mars-scape due to all that red dust.

[iceman]

Here's a few I took while walking to work on Tuesday morning, using my wife's Canon Ixus 850 IS.

Was pretty incredible.

[murray@nsas]

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/c:\3.jpg

[Mark Gaffney]

Hi, We recieved a phone call from a relative in Sydney to tell us about the dust storm..We`re in Tullymorgan near Maclean in NE NSW. Within minutes it had hit us too & lasted most of the rest of the day..I`m attaching a shot of the Sun taken through the dust with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 digital camera...!

Mark.

[samartha]

Hi people,
Was the red dust storm explainable? As far as I am reading, this is the first time people have seen.
Do you suspect, someone has played a ugly secret project experiment? weather control through satelite?(may be US govt.)?

[DavidU]

Ah no. Just a large but plain old Aussie dust storm.

[samartha]

hmm ok :-)
I am seeing this news covered on our telivision first time, so I thought it was unusual.

[Mark Gaffney]

I understand it was dust picked up by an unusual cold front in the desert north of Adelaide & in western NSW. The only conspiracy might have something to do with global warming! The last big dust storm I believe was back in 2001 or 2002 (I may have the year wrong?!)...

Mark.

[tornado33]

Dust storm once again in Newcastle but as Sydney is now in the clear it wont last much longer now. Amazing, 2 major dust storms inside of a week. How unusual is that?

[Mark Gaffney]

here`s some Sun images from this afternoon`s repeat performance...

[Kevnool]

No dust today way out west you should all have a dust free day tomorrow.

From the western forecaster.
Cheers Kev.