It's been 5 weeks since my last photo challenge post. The main reason the challenge was on hiatus was Grad Girl's big exam that required a lot of effort to get ready for. Now That she's past that and a lot of our travel is done for a bit, we were all ready to get back to getting photos for the last challenge.
This one was harder than we expected. To be honest, I struggled the most. I didn't get my photos till last night and it took some set up and patience.
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| Kate: Just Smoke |
It took me several attempts at generating smoke before I found one that worked. But all the effort paid off, I ended up with several shots that were interesting. This one was my favorite.
My Guy captured this shot on his way out of town to photograph the comet.
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| My Guy: Distant Fires |
It's been incredibly dry here. We'd not had any rain for two to three months. We did finally get some rain on Wednesday and the forecast is for a rainy weekend. It's definitely needed. There were grass fires one county over from us that required evacuations last Tuesday. I think the firefighters were able to prevent any homes from burning, but it was definitely scary for the residents.
Grad Girl as usual found something from her experiments.
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| Grad Girl: Toxic Orange Smoke |
It may be a little hard to see, but there is a definite cloud of orange smoke (technically it's a vapor) in the flask. This is red fuming nitric acid, which is very concentrated nitric acid and a very dangerous inhalation hazard. It's one the reagents Grad Girl uses in her lab work. If you were to buy a bottle of nitric acid for general lab use, the concentration of that nitric acid is about 68% (the rest is water). Red fuming nitric acid is 86% nitric acid. Definitely a liquid that has to be handled in a well functioning fume hood.
My Guy and I thought this challenge was hard. He pulled the card for this week's challenge. It's harder.
I actually have an idea. We'll have to see how that pans out. Should be another interesting week of photos.
5 comments:
LOVE your photo, it is really almost spooky! I would submit a burning cigarette, but it would have to be a candy cigarette. ;)
Hope you get your desperately needed rain. We are in the same boat and have a weekend of rain predicted also - we can't wait!
Your photo is really something!! Definitely my favorite this week. We went from flooding rains in June to NO rain this fall. So we are awfully dry here in SD too. Maybe we'll see a little this weekend.
I hope Grad Girl's big exam went well for her! Your challenge this week was definitely a tough one, but so interesting to see what you each came up with. We've noticed that wildfires create stunning sunsets - unfortunately. Hoping we all get some precipitation soon!
They are all really good, but I like yours the best. It's just so interesting!
I’m not surprised your photo was hard to capture. I’ve tried capturing smoke before. I can’t remember if I was actually successful. Your discussion of nitric acid concentrations was interesting. When I took chemistry at the community college level, there were jars of different acids just sitting out on the lab tables. I remember taking the stopper out o the nitric acid and seeing it give off wisps of smoke. Thinking about it now, it seems weird it was just sitting out like that. There were others too…sulfuric, for one. No hoods anywhere. I’ll be curious to see what you do with the compassion prompt. Seems an interesting prompt right before this contentious election.
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