Mt Shinmoe erupts, as seen from Takaharu Town Office, in Miyazaki Prefecture on Thursday. Ash and rocks fell across a wide swathe of southern Japan straddling the prefectures of Miyazaki and Kagoshima, as one of Mount Kirishima's many calderas erupted, prompting authorities to raise alert levels and call on for an evacuation of all residents within 2 km radius of the volcano. Picture taken by long exposure. See story here.
© Japan TodayPower of nature
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48 Comments
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nandakandamanda
Stunningly beautiful.
paulinusa
Lightning from the earth.
MeanRingo
Shocking! No really, can somebody explain the "lightning"? What is that?
ninjastar
Godzilla has awoken.
papasmurfinjapan
Amazing image, shame about the picture quality.
nisegaijin
this is one insane picture! power of mother nature
hokkaidoguy
Static electricity.
gogogo
Sweet!
MeanRingo: The lighting is static electricity built up from the fine ash and discharges back to earth, the same way rain does it in a traditional thunder storm except lower to the ground.
papigiulio
awesome image.
Gurukun
This is one of the best pictures I've seen on JT! Best lightningist?
diddlefinger
whats that yellow thing? looks like a piece of wood/balcony railing? or trying to hide something?
timeon
stunning! that's the Moon behind the ash cloud?
Smorkian
Lovely, but I wish it wasn't posted in such a compressed state. Bandwidth is cheap, so why compress so much? Any chance of getting a version of this photo that's closer to the original photo?
alladin
What an awesome photograph!!
WilliB
Wow, now thats an impressive photo!
Smythe
Photo was well taken. Well let us hope it is not like Iceland maze of crap into the air that stopped aircraft in Ireland, England, & even continen of Europe at the more norther sections.
GW
Folks complaining about the pic need to think a bit more this was done at night, so slow shutter speed perhaps minutes judging by the movement of the stars in the background, notice how they arent points in the sky but blurs and with a high ISO its naturally going to be grainy
ebisen
By far the most spectacular picture I've seen here :) - Wish I could see this in real life..
papasmurfinjapan
I didn't say it was a bad photo, but I would have cleaned it up in photoshop a bit before submitting it.
I'd probably try and wrap a gorilla grip tripod around something on the outside of the balcony (if there was something to grip) and get a shot from there too.
Foxie
The most amazing phenonema mother nature has ever shown us.
Smorkian
GW, I am a pretty serious photog myself so I know a little about the challenges of long exposures/night exposures. That's not grain, that's compression artifacts. The original from Reuters surely doesn't show any of that because they either shot in very low compression jpg or a RAW format.
nandakandamanda
The striata in the balcony complement the shot. Now if the stone was cut from local rock, then woohay, there might be even more relevance! :8D
Stillwater
It's Mordor. Sauron has leashed his army!!!
southsakai
WOW Best picture I've seen on JT Ever!
MeanRingo
Thanks!
alohajapan
It really sucks to live in kyushu right now with all the problems going on.
Noripinhead
The wrath of Zeus.
TokyoGas
From hell's heart I stab at thee!
That is a great picture.
DenTok2009
Wow! How cool!
BurakuminDes
Awesome photo - wish I was there enjoying this spectacle! You guys living down there are lucky to see and photograph this!
Zenny11
There was some good footage last night on TV, but agree to get to see it live ....
bobbafett
LOL
mokgohan
By the beard of Odin! Thor's in Japan early to promo his new movie.
jj1980
lol ninjastar.
Never seen anything like this. Good find JT!
Patricia Yarrow
It's the start of Muadib's offensive against Everybody as the lightening cracks to announce the first rains falling on the Shield Wall!!
toyotomi
I am sure it not so fun for the rice farmers who have lost their winter crops, volcan ash kills rice, or for the chicken farmers who have had to cull their chickens, nor is it fun fun for the residents of Kagoshima and Miyazaki to clean the volcanic ash off their residences, autos, and streets.
So when you are paying more prices this year for rice and chicken: Remember this picture was cool.
chinabeachmoon
Unreal! An incredible example of the power and glory of nature. Congratulations to the photographer.
the_sicilian
Very good JT. You never get praise from this crowd, but this is well deserved.
sensei258
@TokyoGas-name the book that quote comes from, then the unrelated movie it was used in.
knowitall
There is no scientific evidence of a link between volcanos and avian flu.
Is there such thing as a winter crop of rice in Japan? Granted I haven't checked out the situation in Kyushu, most of Japan does not grow rice in the winter.
Kwaabish
Awesome photo!
Roppongi
The cause of volcanic lightning is not completely understood. Geologists assume that the cause is similar to the cause of lightning in thunderstorms. From an electric universe point of view, the Earth is a small charged body moving in a large cell of plasma, and there is charge waiting for a connection to it.
The 1981 eruption of Mt St Helens featured a spectacular display of sheet lightning, with truck-sized balls of St Elmo's fire seen rolling along the ground 29 miles north of the mountain.
ref
w3.thunderbolts.info
Fadamor
Excellent photo. The photographer left the shutter open long enough to catch a lightning bolt. I don't know if that was luck, or the lightning was coming fast and furious in the ash cloud, but either way it is an amazing photo.
ca1ic0cat
That is a very cool picture.
lotus2
Wow, what a spectacular shot! Well done, JT!
Icewind007
That is so cool.
monkeyspanker
Does this person qualiufy for best volcanoist? BTW Well Done. Kind of makes me feel jealous since photography is my hobby.
Fadamor
The issue will be whether the toxic fumes and ash will kill the remaining chickens that survived the culling.
As for the rice farmers, you're not going to be able to grow much rice next spring if all your paddies are buried in ash.