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Flash Point: Shawn Malone on capturing northern Michigan’s night skies

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Shawn Malone, owner of Lake Superior Photo, describes the process behind North Country Dreamland as a combination of “luck and persistence.”

Malone is a veteran photographer, who focuses on shooting images of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the Lake Superior Watershed. This is her first time-lapse compilation. It’s put together with more than 10,000 photo frames and 33 northern Michigan night sky events last year. These night skyscapes include multiple northern lights scenes, meteor showers, nebulae, planets, constellations, the Milky Way and comets. Many of them were taken over both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan.

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Photo Friday: Spring flow in the Great Lakes

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This photo was taken from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, commander of Expedition 35. He posted several photos on May 5 to his Twitter account showing how the springtime water flows in the Great Lakes. Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario are featured in the photo above.

Wildlife

Volunteers needed to monitor endangered piping plovers

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If you enjoy birdwatching, you may be able to use your hobby to help protect an endangered Great Lakes shorebird. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is relying on volunteers to monitor the critically endangered piping plover during its nesting season this summer, from May 1st to July 15th. Patrols have already been established in Michigan national forest and state parks, including Sleeping Bear Dunes lakeshore. Most remaining breeding pairs nest in Michigan — with the intensive patrol programs, the number of Great Lakes nesting plovers rose from 17 pairs in 1986 to 59 pairs in 2005, according to the National Park Service. But numbers have dropped in recent years: 25 pairs in 2009, 23 pairs in 2010 and 18 pairs in 2011.

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Lake St. Clair best in nation for bass; Lake Erie in top 10

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Lake St. Clair was recently named the best bass lake in the country by Bassmaster Magazine. Many bass anglers considered St. Clair to be the underdog, but according to Bassmaster editor James Hall, an emerging largemouth fishery helped it secure the top spot. “It is truly amazing how much a fishery can change in the span of 12 months,” Hall said in a release.

Echo

Great Lakes salmon videos can help students, anglers

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The Michigan Sea Grant is producing videos to teach students and anglers about salmon in the Great Lakes. The idea began as a way to keep up with the growing popularity of Michigan’s Salmon in the Classroom program, which allows students to raise salmon in their schools and eventually release them in a local watershed. The program is a great opportunity for young people to learn about the life cycles of fish, said Dan O’Keefe, the southwest district educator for Michigan Sea Grant. “It’s amazing what these classrooms have accomplished,” O’Keefe said. “But when these groups were looking for additional resources or speakers to come talk to them, it was just impossible to make it to every school.

Echo

Photo Friday: Snow moon over Lake Ontario

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According to photographer Rick Stankiewicz, February’s full moon is called the snow moon, signaling the deepest snows of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. On February 25, the moon rose over Lake Ontario’s Bay of Quinte, witnessed by Stankiewicz and his friends while ice fishing for walleye. This photo was contributed to Earth Science Picture of the Day, a service of NASA’s Earth Science Division and the Universities Space Research Association.