April 1996 | |||
 Stromboli from Punta Labronzo, 27.4.96. Smoke and clouds around the summit are illuminated by the unusual permanent activity of crater 1. The sky is bright due to the gibbous moon. The reed in the foreground is illuminated by lights from a restaurant. |  Crater 1 from Pizzo, 28.4.96. Vent 1/2 was permanently throwing scoria up to a height of about 50m. They are, however, not visible in this image. The permanent activity was 'modulated': Its intensity varied on a time scale of roughy half an hour. Apart from this, regular eruptions also took place from this vent every few minutes. Crater 1 also erupted from vents 1/3 and 1/4. |  Eruption from crater 3, 21.4.96. Eruptions from crater 3 varied spectacularly: Sometimes a lot of ash got thrown out along with bombs (see on the right of the dark plume), then again the eruptions yielded mainly bombs and hardly any ash. This photo was taken on 21.4.96. Most eruptions at crater 3 came from the vents 3/2 or 3/3. Only one eruption was observed from 3/1 (21.4.96, 20h15 local time). |  Eruption from crater 3 at sunset. also on 21.4.96. All eruptions from this crater produced a spectacular, roaring noise. |
 Permanent activity at crater 1. Photo of vent 3/1 in the evening twilight (from Pizzo, telephoto lens 135mm). This picture does NOT show a 'regular' eruption. What you see here is the unusual permanent spattering activity (exposure time of photo approximately 10 seconds). |  Regular eruption from crater 1, stars! Eruption from vent 3/1 (from Pizzo, standard lens, focal length 50mm), 21.4.96. In the upper right hand corner there are stars of the constallation Cassiopeia (from top to bottom the brightest are Delta Cassiopeiae, Gamma Cassiopeiae and Alpha Cassiopeiae). |  Normal eruption from crater 1 in the moonlight. 27.4.1996 from ridge west of Pizzo, about 800m.a.s.l.). The exposure started several minutes before the eruption. Therefore the sky is slightly illuminated by the gibbous moon ). |  Eruption of vent 1/4 at crater 1. 27.4.1996. Eruptions of 1/4 threw the scoria skywards in a narrow jet. The horizontal line on the right was caused by a tourist boat, the bright point by a flash photograph :-). Probably it was an eruption from vent 1/4 which caused the smoke ring shown below |
 The grand finale. Although these two eruptions (3 left, 1/4 right) did not occur simultanously, they did happen during a timespan of less then one minute. Location of camera: Ridge west of Pizzo, about 800m.a.s.l. 27.4.96, at about 23h45. This was the last photo taken during our field campaign in April 1996. A stereoscopic picture of an eruption from crater 3 is available via the 3D-pages of STROMBOLI ON-LINE. |  Smoke ring. We observed this rare phenomen on 24.4.96 from Punta Labronzo. The contrast of the full picture was considerably enhanced by image processing in order to make the rising ring more prominent. Calculations using the distance, geometry of camera optics and image size yielded an approximate diameter of the ring in the left frame of 25 to 30 metres. |  Sciara del Fuoco during Scirocco. Some of our fieldwork was hampered by severe wind conditions. On 25.4.96 we experienced wind speeds in excess of 100km/h on the Pizzo. On this photo you can see how the storm drives the smoke from the craters down the Sciara del Fuoco and out onto the sea. |  Surprise |