The Northern Lights
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September 12, 2014 — HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GAIL!
The northern lights occur when charged particles from the sun collide with atoms of gas in Earth’s atmosphere. This display happened just after a solar maximum, in 2004. You can see Orion rising above my house in the eastern sky. The aurora was intense and easily visible even though that is a light-polluted part of my sky. As I write this, there is a better-than-even chance of a fine aurora tonight!
Tekkies:
These were among my first ever astronomical images. Shot with an Olympus 5MP point-and-shoot camera on a tripod. Each image was 4 seconds at f/2.8. Unfortunately, not knowing any better, I saved them only as low quality jogs. Doh!
Low quality jpegs perhaps but still very impressive!
The jpgs are low quality, but the show was amazing.