« Observations for 04 August 2012 | Main | Observations for 06 August 2012 »

Observations for 05 August 2012

So I was a bit surprised to find Rift in eruption when I got out there just before midnight. West Triplet had just finished, it appeared, so this would have been a second Rift eruption with an interval of around five hours. (Or, a single eruption with a five hour duration.) In any case, Grand didn't even try to erupt until Rift had finished. Not only that, but it was not just cold, but there was a breeze, so even though it was a 7h14m interval, it felt much longer.

The next eruption made up for that. Another one Turban wait for another one burst eruption. Again the lighting was such that the top of the water jets at the start were all that were illuminated.

This eruption surprised me. As I walked up to the Sawmill Group on my way to Grand, I saw a nice Penta minor eruption from the Top vent. It even put some water down the runoff channel. But Thumping Hole across the walkway, and the other holes like Oval were all down, so I figured that was the extent of Penta's attempt to erupt. So pleasantly surprised when Penta was seen in full eruption, my first of the trip. Grand of course made sure that I couldn't stick around, but as soon as Grand was over, I headed back.

Just after I took this photo, Penta just quit. One moment erupting, I look at the phone to turn off the camera function, look up and nothing's happening.

For Beehive, I decided to do something I'd not done before, and go up to Observation Point and see it from there. Only took me 18 minutes. The water column is plenty tall, but if O.P. is 200 ft. up, then Beehive came nowhere near being 200 ft high.

The next two Grands of the day were fairly undistinguished, although the sunset one was nicely lit, and even had two bursts.