Cloud Research Blog Post

[juliusakula]

Welcome to my cloud research science project to determine the ideal atmospheric conditions that would contribute to the greatest aesthetic quality for sunset photos.

A sunset photo with measurably greater aesthetic qualities would include:

• Clouds that are lit up red, orange, pink. (Quality of lit up clouds)
• Clouds all over the sky lit up in different ways/Cloud Coverage. (Quantity of lit up clouds)
• Taken at the correct time, relative to the local official sunset time. (Bear in mind peak-aesthetic timestamp not equal to absolute sunset time) (Photo not taken "too early" or opportunity for photo was missed)

This aesthetic quality could be measured if you took the amount of red-ish pixels in a 360-degree sunset photo as compared to other pixels above the horizon.

THE RESEARCH TASK: Correlating the "Ratings" of sunset photos

Correlating the "Ratings" of sunset photos to --- the METAR (aviation weather forecast) reporting of local weather && the time of the photo in relation to time of local sunset

• an example METAR: " ... BKN 49 ..." (explained: broken cloud ceiling at 4900ft above-ground-level)
• an example file name: 2021-01-18-12* ... BKN 49 ... 4.0.jpg (explained: date, sunset time, METAR, rating)

Hypothesis: 1) Depending on CLOUD HEIGHT, clouds become vibrantly lit at different times in relation to official sunset time. Higher altitude cloud ceilings are better aesthetically

2) The best cloud-coverage is either SCT (scattered) or BKN (broken) -- not OV (overcast)

For examples of approximated knowledge - after very brief study and a small sample size -

• a broken cloud cieling at 4,000ft will become vibrantly lit 5 minutes AFTER official sunset time.
• An overcast cloud ceiling of 2,000ft will NEVER become vibrantly lit around sunset time.
• High alititude Cirrocumulus stratiformis clouds will become vibrantly lit 15 minutes BEFORE sunset time.

Glossary:

Naming convention with Asterisks indicating local sunset-time

(photos)

* = Official sunset time 10 = 10 minutes prior to sunset 10 = 10 minutes after sunset

(video)

*5-*15 = 5 minutes after sunset to 15 minutes after sunset 10*-*10 = 10 minutes before sunset to 10 minutes after 15*-10* = 15 minutes before sunset to 10 minutes before sunset

A filename should be [date]-[sunset-time-designation] ... [METAR] ... [rating]

Therefore, a filename might be

2021-01-18-12* ... BKN 49 ... 4.0.jpg

Meaning: 12 minutes before sunset on Jan 18, the weather said Broken Clouds @ 4900ft and the photo is "about a 4/10 in terms of aesthetics"

More information

"CRSP" (Cloud Research Science Project), that is the folder name for 360 photos relevant to this study.

A subfolder for my personal study will be under KSZT which is the 4-letter code for my local weather station

To standardize photos, taken from same height & attempt to look at same landmark

[juliusakula]

Knowledge base:

Red light occurs in clouds at sunset because red light does not get scattered like blue light does as it travels through our atmosphere. Red light is a higher wavelength and therefore can travel in a straight line through our atmosphere without scattering. A blue sky is because of the scattered light.