Bear, Blowers and Bubbles in Yellowstone

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beautyintheuniverse
August 31, 2009

Monday 24th August Headed north to Yellowstone. Came across (on the very empty roads) a cluster of 3 cars, stopped!). It was a bear!! The first one I have ever seen, and it was a grizzly! Watch...

Monday 24th August
Headed north to Yellowstone. Came across (on the very empty roads) a cluster of 3 cars, stopped!). It was a bear!! The first one I have ever seen, and it was a grizzly! Watched the bear till it got spooked back into the forest by passing cars (about 15 mins) but during that time it was fascinating to watch the guy (who looked fairly small for a grizzly) foraging. He was certainly digging and licking something off his claws. My reckoning was the heavy rains of the night before had bought worms up near the surface, and the bear merely had to scratch the surface and lick them off his claws. Score to see a bear though. Up till now they have been frequently reported, and as far as I was concerned, never seen. Got up to the Geyser basin about 9ish, and had only just set up the timelapse when Ole Faithful blew. The weather was still overcast and gloomy, and the people cleared. That gave a great opportunity to fly the plane. I was nervous here, not only were there more people around than I was used to, but also in the event of a crash, its likely that the ranger sorts would be pretty humourless bastards. On the first turn I lost orientation on the plane and almost noseplanted it into old faithful.. that bought my heart into my mouth, but I was soon back in control and the nerves calmed as I was back in full control. Its clear to me that there is a lot of potential for FPV here, but I was content with a 5 minute flight, before getting my plane back with only some curious looks. After seeing that the footage had some *great* moments in it (flying through the plume of the big geyser) I was feeling pretty smug, and got a coffee from the lodge, some muchies from the car and went over to join the junior ranger buffalo talk to eat breakfast. I was disappointed by the rangers sloppy use of terms, although I said nothing (he repeatedly described winter as a predator of the buffalo). After the geyser blew a second time the weather was clearing and I thought what the heck, having it clear will look good and hung around for it to blow a third time. After that (about midday) I took a leasurely drive up the left side of Yellowstone, took the fire-hole lake scenic drive. Lots of hot pools and geysers. The geysers can be rather frustrating in that you can wait for hour and see nothing. Plus the second you leave it might blow. Indeed this is what happened to a Texan I got talking to. They geyser was meant to blow every 30 mins. He had waited for an hour. We talked for half an hour, turns out he had some VERY expensive astro- kit (probably 50 k all in). Essentially a photographic machine though. No sooner had he left, then the geyser blew (the thing had a large cone on it). Scouted on the way north for a good place for astronomy, and just short of Madison junction I found a good place (next to the amphitheater). Kipped an charged batteries till dusk. Was awakened by a ranger who gave the usual speel about if I slept during the night then I was breaking the law. Shit this is worse than Nightmare on Elm Street. you know, if you fall asleep then they get you!
The plan was Jupiter the full rotation. This time using eyepiece projection. 32mm plossl on a 4in telextender and the HD camera. Seeing in the early part of the evening was surprisingly poor. I was thinking that the proximity of the hot spot might be a significant factor (the site was chosen to not look over much blacktop). It had not escaped my attention that the refractor case which had only been left in the open had got covered in condensation in about 30 mins, and about midnight the same started happening on the corrector plate. No problem, I had my hairdryer ready for this! However even this smallest of hairdryers was a power hog (1800W) and the powertank could only cut 400. Initially it worked okay, but soon the powertank couldnt cut it. So I hooked it up directly to a powerinverter hooked to the running car battery. That would only just work with the dryer putting out only a tiny breeze of warm air, however it was enough. I was recording 15s of video every 4 mins, and that gave plenty of time to de-dew the plate. Then about 1ish, more disaster, the power inverter fried, and that was the only one I had that could hack that sort of power NOOOOOO! I figured if I put the lens cap on between each 15 s of video, that it might give me another hour or so, and it seemed to work. However during that hour it suddenly occurred to me, I had an ample heat source in the car, but no easy way to transfer that to the scope corrector. Then it came to me, what if I heated up the lens cover between frames. It worked fantastically. I could heat the plate up to 40C (full heat blast in the car) while I was taking the video. Then when I put it back on the scope, it had enough heat capacity in it to de-dew the corrector. And that how it went till Jupiter set. (cut for length)

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Mongo400 (1 month ago) Show Hide

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I like the fpv part, Do you run an easy star? Fantastic idea, would have thought that people would have gotten mad at ya for flying around there.

ZincFuse (2 months ago) Show Hide

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What's the name of the song at the beginning? Great vid btw.

SilvaSprinter (2 months ago) Show Hide

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Does Anybody know the name of the first song used?

Sorry but I havn't found anyone that knows in the comments.

razvan616 (2 months ago) Show Hide

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It's the first time you see a bear?
In Brasov, Romania, you can see them everywhere, right in the middle of the town. They're not grizzlies, but anyway...

daeamarth (2 months ago) Show Hide

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Sorry, Water weighs less not rock on "average"...

daeamarth (2 months ago) Show Hide

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Do you suppose the water has anything to do with cooling the magma beneath yellow stone and possibly helping hold back an eruption? Rock on average weighs less(~2lbs? per gallon) but rock doesnt really evaporate but it does absorb heat. I doubt it. Just a thought though. Actually the water probably produces solidified formations that would attribute to an eventual eruption Id suspect. Thoughts?

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johndigiac (2 months ago) Show Hide

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bears are the coolest.

hotbananapants (2 months ago) Show Hide

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Would it have been the end of your plane if you flew it through a geyser cloud?

volkovx (3 months ago) Show Hide

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Anyone know what the first song is called?

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Bear, Blowers and Bubbles in Yellowstone

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