Wednesday, 21 July 2021, cloudy skies continued. Had a brief shower after sunset (0.06" rain). Thursday night, 22 July, thunderstorms were in the area. Most of the lightning was in the clouds, but I did get this photo with the D850 DSLR (f/8, 2 seconds, ISO 1600, 14mm UWA lens) using the MIOPS Lightning Trigger.

Received 0.44" rain from the storm.

Friday, 23 July, was cloudy all day with some showers late Friday night (0.42"). Light to moderate showers continued most of the daytime on Saturday, 24 July (0.8").

Sunday, 25 July, was the 12th anniversary of setting up the SkyShed POD observatory. It was cloudy all day with occasional light rain mid-morning (0.15").

Monday, 26 July, dawned mostly clear, but clouds returned mid-day. Tuesday, 27 July, also dawned mostly clear, but clouds returned mid-day with a brief thundershower mid-afternoon (0.11"). This was the storm after it passed through.

Three and half hours later there was some nice mammatus clouds from another storm.

That evening there was another brief shower (0.06"). Wednesday, 28 July, dawned clear, but the sky became mostly cloudy by late afternoon.

Thursday morning, 29 July, was cloudy. I did some POD preparation for the soon-to-arrive Dome Cover from SkyShed Observatories. Mid-afternoon had a brief strong thunderstorm with frequent (and very close) cloud-to-ground lightning (and several electrical grid glitches) and brief heavy rain (0.2"). About an hour before sunset another thunderstorm came through with lots of lightning. My webcams captured some of the lightning.

A third storm came through late Thursday night, dropping 0.25" rain.

Friday, 30 July, dawned party cloudy, with increasing clouds during the day. Had a brief mild thundershower late afternoon (0.01"). Later that night had another thunderstorm come through (0.25"). One of my webcams captured this lightning after the storm passed to the west.

I decided to photograph some of the lightning from this storm using the D850 DSLR, 14mm UWA lens, and the MIOPS Lightning Trigger. This is a merge of 22 photos taken over a 20 minute period.

Click or tap on image for larger version

Yes, I'm having fun with the MIOPS Lightning Trigger when I can't be in the observatory!

Saturday, 31 July, dawned mostly clear, but Monsoon large cumulus clouds began appearing mid-day.

We received over 7" of rain this month.

Since "First Light" in the observatory in August 2009, July 2021 was the first July with no sessions in the observatory due to cloudy skies since July 2010. And this July was only the second time there were no sessions in the observatory during an entire month.

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It's official! The next in-person Star Party at Oracle State Park, our local International Dark-Sky Association "International Dark Sky Park", will be held Saturday, 11 September 2021. It will have been a year and a half since the last in-person Star Party due to COVID-19.

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