Flash Signatures: Lighthouses at night each have a distinctive flash signature that allow them to be identified from a distance by mariners. Big Red that guards the channel leading to Lake Makatawa and Holland, Michigan has a red/white flash signature. Red flash, then ~8 sec later a white flash. The photos above were shot with a Nikon D2H digital SLR with a Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 lens - ~0.7 sec exposure at iso 200 at f/2.8 for the image on the left and then another identical exposure 8 sec later for the exposure in the center.

Clicking the right image above loads a 29 frame animated GIF sequence showing Big Red's flash signature. The animation will open in a new browser window and will run in real time. This is a large file, >1.5 Mbytes - please be patient and allow it to load!