Archives May 2006
Night of 30/31 May - It was apparently clear last night but the glow from the extruding lavadome was noticeably absent. A stacked image of all of the enhanced images from last night shows the crater clearly, but no glow.
Night of 29/30 May - The sky cleared not long before sunset and remained clear
all night! The glow from the lavadome was visible and there was a rock-fall and
associated outburst on the images at 23:05. The first animation
below shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 271 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 165 kB)
Night of 18/19 May - There were several bright outbursts last night and the glow
from the ensuing rock-falls was visible for a time after sunset. There was a
much larger outburst at 04:17 this morning - which corresponded with a larger
tremor at approximately the same time (e.g. see
YEL webicorder trace).
The first animation
below shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 270 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 202 kB)
Night of 17/18 May - The glow from the lavadome was visible from sunset until
just after midnight, followed by a couple of small outbursts at 02:05 and 02:55
last night. Nothing as exciting as the event s from Saturday night - May 13/14). The first animation
below shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 308 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 204 kB)
Night of 16/17 May - The glow from the lavadome was visible from sunset until
about 03:00 this morning. The moon also illuminated the crater during the early
morning.
The first animation
below shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 347 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 229 kB)
Night of 15/16 May - There were several small outbursts of activity in the
crater last night - but it was much quieter than recent days. The bright light
passing over Mount St Helens in the animations below was the full moon! If you
are interested in Saturday's large rock-fall and outbursts, images from the
Sugar Bowl camera clearly show a sizeable chunk of the "fin" broke away on
Saturday night. Also of interest, some of the webicorder traces recorded the
strong
M7.4
quake which occurred near the Kermadec Islands this morning (e.g. see
WIFE).
The first animation
below shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 409 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 250 kB)
Night of 14/15 May - There were numerous small rock falls and associated
outbursts on last night's images, with several larger and brighter events
occurring at 22:43, 00:49, 03:39, 04:19. Although none of these was as large or
spectacular as the event that happened on Saturday night (see below). The almost
full moon also passes through the scene just after 00:30.
The first animation
below shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 430 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 238 kB)
Night of 13/14 May - There was an enormous outburst of activity at approximately
22:50 last night. It appears as if a large part of the new "fin" may have
collapsed in a spectacular way. The event is clearly visible in the webicorder
traces from last night (e.g.
Yellow Rock MSH) The bright light that passes above the crater
from left to right immediately after the event is the moon just out of the frame
and is not related to any volcanic activity. I have also posted the image from
the beginning of the event on
Daz Dayz.
The first animation below shows the
processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the Volcanocam images
and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a daytime image of the
crater for reference. The speed is set to 1 fps (5 minutes per second) for
the first animation and only a limited set of images is included. The next two
animations show all the images from last night at a speed of 6 fps (equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - slow version showing images of the glow (speed 1 fps, size 253 kB)
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (faster 6fps version, size 464 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 409 kB)
Night of 12/13 May - The moon illuminated the mountain for most of the night and
there was a brief outburst at 01:25 and a couple of other small outbursts during
the night. The first animation below
shows the full frame processed images of the mountain which have been enhanced
to maximise the brightness of the glow and the second shows those images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing enhanced images of the glow (size 620 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 261 kB)
Night of 10/11 May - There were several bright outbursts of activity last night
at 22:57, 00:07 and 03:28. The first outburst at 22:57 appears to have occurred
near the top of the new and growing "fin", whereas the other two brighter events
appeared to arise lower down on the lavadome.
The first animation below
shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 342 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 209 kB)
Night of 09/10 May - The weather was clear last night and the moon illuminated
the mountain. There was a bright outburst from the lavadome at 22:35 which
corresponded with a larger tremor as seen on the
YEL webicorder. The glow
lasted for several hours before fading from view. The first animation below
shows the processed images at the approximate brightness as seen in the
Volcanocam images and the second shows enhanced images superimposed over a
daytime image of the crater for reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps
(equivalent of half an hour in real time per second).
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 297 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain - only the area around the crater is animated (size 192 kB)
Night of 4/5 May (revisited) - The folks over at the Volcanocam have pointed out
that it is now possible to see the
100m high "fin"
that is growing out of the lavadome on the
Volcanocam images. So I have generated a new background image for the
stacked sequences, and reprocessed the enhanced images from yesterday. It is
quite clear that the rock-falls on Thursday night originated at at least two
different locations, with one of the bright outbursts originating at the top of
the 'fin'. The animation speed is slowed down to 3 fps (equivalent to 15 minutes
of real time per second in the animation) and only the area around the crater is
animated.
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain (size 140 kB)
Night
of 04/05 May - There was nothing much to see on last night's images until
just after midnight, then the sky lit up with numerous outbursts which lasted
until sunrise this morning. The largest and brightest event corresponded with a
strong tremor at 02:02 [e.g. see
YEL webicorder trace].
From reviewing the images it seems apparent that there was a major rock-fall
from the lavadome. The first animation below shows the processed images
at the approximate brightness as seen in the Volcanocam images and the second
shows enhanced images superimposed over a daytime image of the crater for
reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps (equivalent of half an hour in
real time per second) and only the images where the glow was visible are
included - just two images!
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 220 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain (size 340 kB)
Night
of 02/03 May - There was a brief outburst last night at 21:37 which only lasted
for 10 minutes (two images from the Volcanocam). There was no other signs of the
glow throughout the night. The first animation below shows the processed images
at the approximate brightness as seen in the Volcanocam images and the second
shows enhanced images superimposed over a daytime image of the crater for
reference. The animation speed is set at 6 fps (equivalent of half an hour in
real time per second) and only the images where the glow was visible are
included - just two images!
Flash
movie - showing images of the glow (size 51 kB)
Flash movie - enhanced images of the glow, superimposed on a background image of
the mountain (size 60 kB)
