I was outside taking the clothes off the line and looked up to see this very strange cloud shadow up in the sky, it looked just like a giant claw!
 
It was very pointy but the foreground cloud was round??? 
Anyway no matter how it formed it certainly grabbed my attention :-)
 
I ran inside quickly to get my camera and took a picture and used a Canon G7x mark 11 on manual focus
​on the 31st March 2022.
 
There is some excellent information on how cloud shadows are formed on Les Cowley ‘Atmospheric Optics’ Website’ at: https://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/rayim13.htm

The conditions were not ideal with so much cloud in the sky, but I did mange to get some photos of this large sunspot group AR 2975 & AR 2976 before the whole sky clouded over just after midday. It was very hot today taking pictures of the Sun at 33C…hot, hot, hot!
 
The images were captured with a Lunt 60mm solar scope and a Canon 700D camera with a 2x Barlow lens attached. 20 images were captured one set for the solar disc and one set for the faint prominences and combined in PS CS4.
 
The DSLR camera settings for the disc of Sun was exposure 1/500th second and ISO100, for the faint prominences the exposure was 1/15th second and ISO 200.

We’ve had some strange colourful sunsets in the western sky for the past couple of days here on the Gold Coast.  Then I realised from some postings on Spaceweather.com that it could be aerosols in the atmosphere from the volcanic plume left over from the Tonga-Hunga eruption.
 
Thank you Peter Lowenstein from Zimbabwe & Tara Williams from Pottsville NSW for highlighting this with your postings on Spaceweather.
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183195
​
https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=183147
 
I got really excited to see what I could capture but had to drive up to Mt Tamborine to get a good western horizon, so I grabbed my husband and said we were going on an adventure, told him to grab a beer and lets go…
 
After the Sun had set, we waited and watched the sky above where the Sun has set and you could definitely see the aerosols in the sky all along the horizon and up into the sky.

​As the time went by, you could then see crepuscular rays forming in this material. I was so pleased to have made the effort to drive up the mountain; it was well and truly worth it :-)
 
Images taken with a Canon 70D camera and an 18-400mm lens, my husband took the image of my taking photos with his iPhone :-)

Please go to NASA’s JPL Earth Science website to read more on this eruption at:
Tonga Eruption Sent Ripples Through Earth’s Ionosphere
Feb. 4, 2022
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tonga-eruption-sent-ripples-through-earths-ionosphere
 
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, it unleashed a violent explosion with the equivalent force of 4 to 18 megatons of TNT, according to estimates from NASA geologist Jim Garvin.
 
This explosion produced an acoustic shockwave that was strong enough to perturb the ionosphere, the outer layer of the atmosphere that starts about 50 to 56 miles (80 to 90 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and contains electrons ionized by the Sun’s energy.
 
Further reading at:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149367/dramatic-changes-at-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai 
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149474/tonga-volcano-plume-reached-the-mesosphere

​Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

As you know I’m always looking up at the sky, while racing outside to get into the car I looked up and there was this most spectacular solar halo around the Sun. I quickly grabbed my camera and took a picture before driving off to my appointment…it looked incredible!
 
Image taken with a Canon G7x Mark11 on the 16th March 2022 at 9.30am, on manual focus with an aperture of F11, the exposure time was 1/2000th second and ISO125.

So keep looking up…you never know what you’ll find :-)

During a wild stormy afternoon thunderstorm, these incredible Mammatus clouds developed in the western sky along with a faint rainbow in the eastern sky.
 
What was really strange after the storm had passed was that you could still see this running lightning firing all across the eastern sky with a rainbow still in the sky!
It was related to that band of cloud you can see in the foreground of the lightning pictures.
 
I’ve taken some screen shots from the movie to show the awesome branching lightning, this movie was taken with an iPhone on movie mode...it was all quite eerie!
 
We’ve had dreadful floods all over Queensland these past two weeks and the rain is relentless, these severe thunderstorms are because it’s so humid and hot at 36 degrees and there’s so much moisture in the air.
 
Hopefully we will get some clear weather soon…

My Image was taken on the evening of the 6th March during a severe storm with an Apple iPhone on movie mode; this image is a screen capture of the lightning strike.

I was so surprise that the phones camera was able to capture these lightning bolts so well. The storm hit so fast and so quick I was unable to set up all my other camera gear…. but I’m very happy with this image :-)
​
How did I take the image, just aimed the iPhone camera at the sky on movie mode and recorded it. Downloaded it onto my Mac in QuickTime and did a screen shot when the lightning bolt flashed!