Twin Cities Night Flight

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Brad
Definitely no Hudson Corridor but was fun none the less. Our local photog (Dmitry) snapped a bunch and here are the first 2. The Mississippi was almost dead calm so nice water reflections. It was busy and we weren't cleared into the Bravo so lots of 1200agl after dark with with several vectors for traffic kept things "task loaded". Nice to get in some more night flight lately.

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That is quite the camera. Nice detail.
 
He shoots a new model Fuji with a 23mm lens. Even with the crop its still somewhat wide angle so we were closer than it looks.

I had a 45MP Sony camera right behind me. But under the bravo down low, taking vectors, traffic and nowhere to land...that camera wasn't gonna be touched. I mainly brought if they cleared us up and over.
 
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Definitely no Hudson Corridor but was fun none the less. Our local photog (Dmitry) snapped a bunch and here are the first 2. The Mississippi was almost dead calm so nice water reflections. It was busy and we weren't cleared into the Bravo so lots of 1200agl after dark with with several vectors for traffic kept things "task loaded". Nice to get in some more night flight lately.

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The upside of standard time. Great pics. Big cities were made for night flight
 
Wow, great photos! Is the Tee-Pee looking thing Mystic Lake?
Yep!

It was a very weird experience when we "first" spotted it. We were under the bravo (obviously). A Sun Country flight had just passed about 400ft directly above us. So we were looking way up. After it passed we noticed way farther ahead and up these strange lights shimmering on the haze/OVC layer way above us. A bit "Close Encounters" like! First thought was a airliner breaking thru. As we got closer we then noticed them in a pattern and looked and saw the casino below. I cant recall if the lights were moving or not.

If you look up UFO over Prior Lake its funny how the UFO crowd loves these types of things. You gotta admit those lights forming a perfect circle about 10,000ft up look just like something from Close Encounters.
 
Not having ever been there, thanks for sharing. Looks like a neat place.

Minneapolis was a wheat milling boomtown, based on the water power of Saint Anthony Falls. Pillsbury A mill was the last and I believe largest direct hydraulic drive mill built. Just before the changeover to electric power.
 
Being from the area, I recognize everyone of those photos of St Paul's western suburbs. I assume the last one is your home drome.
 
Not that I'm trying to start a competition or anything, but here you go.
MSP 11_23_2020 #1A.jpg MSP 11_23_2020 #2A.jpg MSP 11_23_2020 #1A.jpg MSP 11_23_2020 #2A.jpg
The backstory on this was I was leaving Faribault (KFBL), south of the twin cities, wanting to transit MSP Bravo landing Anoka (KANE) on the north side. Called MSP approach several times to see if I could transit Bravo airspace. Controller was busier than squirrel in fall gathering nuts. On the fifth call he finality responded and when I gave him my request he couldn't comply and was very apologetic. Told him no problem and I'd skirt underneath to the east. The pic is when I was turning to the NW on the north side of Bravo, 12 miles from home. Don't think I would have had the opportunity to snap the pics if I was busy flying through Bravo.

Photos were taken on 11/23/2020 with my Samsung J7 while I was flying over Shoreview looking southwest.
 
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