Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️
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spahn711.bsky.social
Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️
@spahn711.bsky.social
60K followers 980 following 3.2K posts
Storm chaser. Volcano hunter. University Physics, Astronomy, & Earth Science Instructor. MS Physics/BS Astrophysics. Rockhounder & Mineral Collector. Raccoon whisperer. Allow me to share our planet's beauty with you. linktr.ee/spahn711
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spahn711.bsky.social
Having a normal one!
A photo of my dog laying on the bed, tummy up, with his mouth wide open smiling and his legs raised in the air.
November 13, 2025 at 5:34 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
Your moment of zen with the sights and sounds from the Merced River in Yosemite Valley.
November 13, 2025 at 1:00 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
A little aurora & Milky Way combo from last night. Not too shabby for far southern Oklahoma, eh? #photography
A photograph of tall, vibrantly red-orange aurora pillars on the horizon. The foreground is a brown farm field with a few bare trees and hay bales. Above the aurora is the faint band of the Milky Way.
November 12, 2025 at 6:59 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
The Milky Way over aurora over far southern Oklahoma 0n 11/11. #photography
A night sky photo shot over a brown farm field. On the horizon are vibrant pink pillars of aurora, with many stars and the band of the Milky Way scratching horizontally toward the top of the frame.
November 12, 2025 at 6:50 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
This is currently from my apartment, looking toward the city, in far SOUTHERN OKLAHOMA. Entire sky is full of color with this sub storm.
Pink Aurora filling the sky
November 12, 2025 at 5:00 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
Absolutely wild naked eye visible pillars all the way down here on the Oklahoma/Texas border. Cell phone shot here. #aurora
A cell phone photo of red aurora
November 12, 2025 at 2:26 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
My entire timeline rn.
A two frame meme from Seinfeld. The top frame is a picture of Jerry basking in a red glow. "Good lord! Whats happening in there?" The bottom frame is Kramer in his doorway, also basked in a red glow. "Aurora borealis."
November 12, 2025 at 1:41 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
Oklahoma is beautiful, actually. All scenes were captured in the last 2 years. #photography
A collage of 7 photos that I took in Oklahoma in the last 2 years. On the left, from top to bottom: a road winding up a hill covered in fall foliage, a supercell thunderstorm hovering in the night sky with lightning shooting out of it, a tree-lined stream with everything covered in heavy white snow, and colorful aurora over a lake with patchy clouds. On the right, from top to bottom: a comet in the twilight sky over turner falls, a pastel sunset over the hazy, small mountains, and mammatus clouds over a golden wheat field.
November 9, 2025 at 10:10 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Hazy horizons. #photography
A landscape photograph of a few layers of dark, hazy mountains with a very saturated sky above. The Sun had just set out of frame, leaving a rich red-to-orange-to-yellow gradient of color in the sky.
November 9, 2025 at 6:20 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
A few rough drone photos of the fall colors in Oklahoma's Ouachita mountains, taken shortly before sunset. #photography
A road curves up a hill covered in trees of green, yellow, orange, and red. Additional hills are seen behind the foreground one. The Sun is about to set along the distant hazy horizon. A high aerial view of a road that winds along the top of multiple hills filled with trees of green, yellow, orange, and red. The entire landscape of hills is covered in trees. A few elongated clouds hover over the distant horizon. A high aerial view of a road that winds along the top of a hill filled with trees of green, yellow, orange, and red. Many of the trees are illuminated by the golden glow of the setting Sun. An aerial top down view of a curvy road that cuts through the trees of green, yellow, orange, and red. The right side of the road is illuminated by the setting Sun, while the left side is in the hill's shadow.
November 8, 2025 at 7:07 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
The drive along the mountains is spectacular, especially for someone like me who's rarely seen widespread fall colors (I've lived in FL, TX, and OK my entire adult life, and teaching doesn't allow for distant travel during the fall). Here's a few more images from this special place in OK:
A photo looking down a road, lined with golden and orange trees, that curves off to the right. Above the trees, multiple hills completely covered in fall colors can be seen, with the more distant hills obscured by haze. A photo looking down a winding road, mostly in the shadows of the multicolored trees that bracket it. At the end of the road, tall mountains (tall for Oklahoma, okay) rise up into the sky and to the top of the frame. The slopes are full of trees, mostly green, but some yellow, orange, and red. The very tops of each slope are highlighted by the nearly setting sun.
November 8, 2025 at 3:39 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Peak fall foliage in Oklahoma's Ouachita mountains. Yes, this is Oklahoma! #photography

What is already one of the most beautiful parts of the state absolutely comes alive in the fall. I've been wanting this shot for years, but I either couldn't get there during peak or there were active droughts.
A photograph looking straight down a road, which can be seen winding back and forth up a hill in the distance. The hill, which fills most of the frame and is illuminated by a soon-to-be-setting Sun, is alive with color - trees of green, yellow, orange, and red cover every inch beside the road.
November 7, 2025 at 10:01 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 1:28 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Tonight's pastel sunset in southeast Oklahoma. #photography
A portrait photograph of the sky immediately after sunset. The sky is partially filled with layers of clouds, all glowing with pastel colors of blue, pink, and orange. One cloud stands out at the top of the photo, with a sort of hook or claw-like shape. Below is a mountainous landscape filled with numerous dark hills. A single tree sticks up at the bottom center.
November 7, 2025 at 3:27 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
Last night's super Moon. 🌕 #photography
A close-up image of last night's super Moon. The moon was fairly low on the horizon, and was shot through a bit of haze, so the Moon's color is orange-tinted. The bumpy, cratered surface is noticeable on the edges of the disk.
November 6, 2025 at 2:10 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
🤷‍♀️
A satellite view of the cloud corner
November 5, 2025 at 2:06 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Meet me under the cloud corner.
A photo of clear blue skies over a grassy field, with a thick layer of clouds that make a nearly perfect 90° corner.
November 5, 2025 at 2:05 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Just finished a full Game of Thrones rewatch and hastily wrote up some thoughts, not that anybody asked:
Just completed a full Game of Thrones rewatch over the last couple months. My general feelings remain the same: • 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲. Episodes like Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, Winds of Winter, and Spoils of War are peak cinema - little has hit harder for me, be it on TV or in a cinema. I still had countless episodes of chills, I cried a few times, and I found myself practically yelling at my television, both in anger and in joy, numerous times. Its just that good. • 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠. There was nearly a decade of build-up, laughter, tears, despair, joy, characters and their arcs that I loved, and those that I viscerally despised. The story and its characters were incredibly complex and flushed out, and yet in the end, it felt like it was all for nothing. I didn't come away with any feelings of awe, joy, sadness, etc. I just felt, well, nothing. Why would Daenerys just snap out of nowhere after winning and murder tens of thousands of innocents? Why tf would you have Cersei killed by falling rubble after 8 seasons of buildup and tension? Why t absolute f is Bran king? After all that, Jon just goes back to the wall? He killed the woman he loves, saved everyone, and is literally the only true heir. Did that just not matter? And nobody stuck up for him when all the Lords and Ladies met at the end? I mean, come ON, where is the payoff? At least give us SOME fan service. Characters we'd come to understand, whose motivations and development were carefully crafted, made choices that betrayed their very development (and our trust as viewers). Maybe if there was more time to flesh out Dany's decline, her sudden snap would have made sense. Maybe if there was more time and buildup to Bran's justification for being made king, it would have been more believable. It is genuinely heartbreaking to watch something you absolutely love and have invest so much time and energy into
November 4, 2025 at 4:29 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
The results of a dog DNA test showing that my dog Chaser is Alaskan Malamute, Siberian husky, gray wolf, and German Shepherd
October 31, 2025 at 5:49 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Here's Chaser being very brave at the vet. 🫣
My dog Chaser standing with his head forced into my lap, hiding his face, while at the vet.
October 31, 2025 at 5:37 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
A massive pano of Yosemite Vally, as viewed from Glacier Point. You'll find Yosemite Falls on the left, Half Dome at middle right, and Nevada Falls on the far right. #photography
A very wide panorama of Yosemite Valley with Yosemite Falls on the left, Half Dome at middle right, and Nevada Falls on the far right. There are clear blue skies overhead.
October 31, 2025 at 5:17 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
A desert sunrise over Big Bend's Mule Ear Peaks. #photography
A desert landscape in which the foreground is partially covered in green shrubs and the background consists of mountains and two small peaks at the center. The sky is a warm yellow-orange due to the just-rising Sun.
October 30, 2025 at 12:37 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
Always love making friends on a hike. #photography
An Icelandic sheep stands in tall green grass illuminated by a beam of sunlight. In the background are two glaciers and large rocky cliffs.
October 29, 2025 at 10:29 PM
spahn711.bsky.social
Hurricanes feed off of warm water. Watch how quickly the eye of #Melissa collapsed as it moved onto land and over the mountainous terrain of Jamaica, and how quickly it is reforming now that it has moved back over water! I will be adding this radar loop to my earth science lectures.
October 29, 2025 at 1:20 AM
spahn711.bsky.social
Chillin'
A photo of my dog, a malamute/husky/wolf/Shepherd, laying on a green sofa with his head upright against the armrest. He is looking toward the camera with ears perked up.
October 29, 2025 at 12:11 AM