Can you believe it's August already?!!! Where has the summer gone, I guess time does fly by when you are having fun. Soon all the kids will be back in school and complaining they wish it was summer again. July was busier than I originally planned but we had fun and managed to obtain a few good images; there were a few bad ones also - maybe one or two. I actually did some storm chasing this month but was never happy with any of the results. Spent some time traveling around the western part of Illinois and eastern Iowa, found some locations that we will be returning to capture some images this fall and/or winter. If you happen to live near or in Peoria, hopefully you stopped by the replica Nina and Pinta ships. They were only in town for a few days and it was fun to visit the crews and obtain a few images also. I can not imagine traveling across the ocean in a boat that small, the crews now have all the luxuries of home - so they are hardly roughing it. If the ships are near yo ur location make sure you visit them.

If you live in Peoria, stop by One World Cafe this month. I am part of a show called 'Scream Peoria' that is running from now until September, I have heard it might run until the end of September but that has not been confirmed yet. The images have a Peoria or Central Illinois theme and also celebrates the fifth anniversary of the Peoria Flickr group, there are 13 artist's with an image displayed and they are for sale. Make sure you stop by and take a look, my image is 'Twin Towers Moon' and was the image used for the February desktop calendar. Here's a link for those people you might have missed it - http://timlesterimages.com/calendar/february.html

This month's image was taken last weekend at the Prairie Air Show 2010 (http://www.prairieair.com/), it shows a F-15E Strike Eagle with vapor forming over the wings. I spent a few days there and have some wonderful images and meet some great people also. Big thanks to all the volunteers who spend most of the year and ALL weekend at the event to make it a success. I have heard numerous people complain about the lack of good aircraft there, boy are they wrong! While the aircraft may not be the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds, there are some wonderful pilots and this year they added some pyrotechnics to the show and had some planes fly Friday night before the fireworks display. If you did not get there this year, make sure you get on the airport grounds next year - there is plenty of activities for the kids and parents will most likely enjoy the displays also. The vapor clouds visible on the wings of the jet are actually called Prandtl-Glauert singularities, these are often confused with breaking the sound barrier but they are formed at transonic speeds also. Intense low pressure areas form at various points around the aircraft and if conditions are right, visible clouds will form in the low pressure areas and remain with the aircraft as it travels. When the pressure changes in these area's the clouds will dissipate, you will usually see these on humid days. Occasionally you can even see these form around the rear wings of Formula One cars on humid days but they look more like the trails coming off the wing tips; so obviously you don't need to travel at supersonic speeds, but it does help.

Here's a link to download the appropriate version of this month's image for your desktop, one for standard screens and one for widescreens. Right click on the text for the format you need and select Save As, save to a location on your computer that you can remember and change the background as needed for your OS.

http://timlesterimages.com/calendar/august.html

Tim

Tim Lester 10129 North Voorhees Road Edwards, IL 61528

Phone - 309-243-9280

Webpage - www.timlesterimages.com

Additional Images - www.flickr.com/photos/timlester

Shop - http://prints.timlesterimages.com