Observations for 31 July 2012
Was a nice moonlit night, and Grand decided to take advantage of it to have what passes for a long interval this summer, almost eight hours. (It's not the length of the interval itself, but how much time you have to wait from when you need to arrive to cover the shortest intervals.) Down the basin, toward Economic, I could hear what I think was an owl hooting. Been a few years for that. I was a bit disappointed when Grand acted like to was trying to erupt and I saw Riverside's steam cloud down basin, as that seemed like it would have been the perfect opportunity to have two Grand eruptions during a single Riverside interval.
Instead Grand waited a couple of more Turban intervals and began just after West Triplet started, and after letting Turban erupt for about two minutes.The moon was starting to head for the horizon, which actually made for a nicer eruption.
Came back in and decided I needed sleep more than I needed to be woken by chatter on the radio. Decided I'd risk the chance that Fan & Mortar would erupt in the next few hours, and so turned it off and set the alarm for 08:10.
So was a bit annoyed when my neighbors awoke me about two hours before that by slamming the door. Since I wasn't going to get back to sleep, I turned on the radio, and heard an announcement that Beehive's indicator had started several minutes earlier. Nice, but I wasn't in any shape or mood to run out. I think my neighbors were headed out that way.
It turns out they may have done me a favor. If I had headed out to Grand when the alarm had gone off, I probably would have watched the start from the bike rack at Castle. Despite getting there early, I didn't even see a full Turban interval, and barely had time to finish breakfast. It was a nice two burst with just enough breeze blowing the steam south so that the backlight was ideal.
Following Grand, noted that the Sawmill Group was high. Waited at Penta for a bit, as while the front vents and the vents across the walkway weren't looking great, Penta's Top vent was occasionally putting out water. After a few minutes, got an actual Penta minor eruption, with the Top vent going about a meter high and putting out planty of water, some of it into the bottom vents. Unfortunately, those vents never showed any inclination to join in, or perhaps it was because they were being used as drains, the minor only lasted a minute. Then activity shifted to Sawmill as it started eruption, and it was time to head in.
The next Grand took place after Rift had been erupting for more than an hour. Other than that, it was another unremarkable one burst eruption.
The next Beehive was similar, it was a twelve hour interval, but with a strong wind to knock the height down and to get much of Geyser Hill east of Depression wet.
At sunset a layer of clouds obscured the sky to the east and south, so the moon didn't contribute much light to the evening Grand eruption. But the sky itself was bright enough that we were clearly able to see the starts of both bursts.
Down at Fan & Mortar, it's my understanding that nothing much happened again today. Which means we are approaching several days since the last event there, and over a week since the last eruption.