When we came into Mexico, from the air plane we could see the Volcano called Popcatépetl smoking. It's immensely tall. At the time, it was somewhat cloudy and it was sticking out from the clouds. During our time in Acapulco, the volcano erupted and the locals had to evacuate the area. Flying out from Mexico back to Montreal, we saw Popocatépetl again, still smoking, and this time no clouds, so we got a good view of the terrain around the volcano as well.
These pictures are obviously viewed from the plane, through the glass window, and were taken with Frank's smart phone. I then enhanced them a bit in Photoshop, using High Pass to sharpen the image, and using some adjustments on Shadows and Highlights and Brightness and Contrast to put the volcano in better light and to decrease the slight refelctions from the window.
It is said that Popocatépetl stands 5426 meters tall, that's 5.426 km, or 3.3715601 miles tall. When it's not hot and erupting or smoking, it's got snow at its peak. Wikipedia says that it's more like 5450 m tall, probably at its highest peak with it's not erupting, since eruptions sometimes make the peaks crumble a bit. Though, I'm no expert, and these are two sources of info with a difference of 24 m, which technically can be a lot.
In diameter, Popcatépetl is of 25km, that's 16 miles, at its base. When I say the thing is huge, it's huge. It's pretty impressive to see it from the plane, and viewed from Google Earth, it almost looks exactly the same. The plane flew around it.
So there you have it, some pictures shared with you all and a bit of info about this active volcano. I hope, if any of you reading this live near its radius, that you were able to evacuate in time and are safe from its fumes and eruptions.