Starship Asterisk*

Auroras over Northern Canada

Explanation: Gusting solar winds and blasts of charged particles from the Sun resulted in several rewarding nights last December for those anticipating auroras. The above image captured dramatic auroras stretching across a sky near the town of Yellowknife in northern Canada. The auroras were so bright that they not only inspired awe, but were easily visible on an image exposure of only 1.3 seconds. A video taken concurrently shows the dancing sky lights evolving in real time as tourists, many there just to see auroras, respond with cheers. The conical dwellings on the image right are teepees, while far in the background, near the image center, is the constellation of Orion.

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Yellow Knife and yellow teepees, all covered with a moving energized particle blanket. N-I-C-E!!

WOW !

I'll add a "wow" and an "ooh ahh". Quite amazing. The link to the concurrent video suggests it was taken in March 2013, but maybe that's a typo.

Both the video and the picture were from a few months ago. I remembered when it was posted and I was betting to myself it would be an instant APOD. Not quite instant, but it made it.

The video was made on the first of march 2013, as it says in the description, and as also could be concluded if you recognised Jupiter in Taurus, in the second half of the video.

Beautiful picture. Yellowknife is actually in the southern half of Canada, only a couple hundred miles north of the United States border.

[Comment regarding the effects of drinking caffeinated tea deleted.] Glowing curtains waving in the sky. See that in person, you won't soon forget it!
--
Obquote: "Thanks for the memories." -Bob Hope.

Guest wrote:
Yellowknife is actually in the southern half of Canada, only a couple hundred miles north of the United States border.

Yellowknife is actually in the southern half of Northern Canada, only a couple hundred miles north of the Albertan border.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowknife wrote:
<<Yellowknife is the capital city and largest community of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, approximately 400 km (250 mi) south of the Arctic Circle. Yellowknife and its surrounding water bodies were named after a local Dene tribe once known as the 'Copper Indians' or 'Yellowknife Indians' who traded tools made from copper deposits near the Arctic Coast.>>

Ahhh, beautiful!

For a lovely literary representation (in lieu of actual experience!), read Adelbert Stifter's 'Rock Crystal', available here: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12573/pg12573.html (it's the second to last story in the volume).

A sight such as that might lead the unsuspecting tourists to "teepee" there pants leading to great laughter amongst the Yellowknives. Doubt that's where in Inconnu River People got their names though. Around here we just get to look out for yellow snow that time of year; only wishing for an accident-inducing sight like this.

While the image of the aurora is beautiful, I'm particularly grateful that you were kind enough to link to a video. Time-lapse videos of auroras aren't hard to find, but I have always wondered what they might look like in real-time. Now I have at least one example (and an explanation of why some move faster then others). Thank you.

The picture and the photo are absolute magnificent. Congrats!! I would like to ask to somebody who has actually seen aurora borealis if you can perceive them as a three dimensional shape or they are too far to notice. I was wondering if anybody has ever taken a 3d picture from aurora borealis. I have been looking for them for a while. I haven't been able to go to Canada to take the pictures myself!! I guess you can take the to picture farther away than the distance between the eyes so as to make the three dimensional effect more obvious. Thanks for the pictures!!

Awesome!!!!
The video is really incredible, especially the middle part where it looks like an OCTOPUS!!!! Big head, and tentacle looking....

Thanks.

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Guest wrote:Beautiful picture. Yellowknife is actually in the southern half of Canada, only a couple hundred miles north of the United States border.

Obviously... Rob

It wasn't "obvious" to me, until i clicked on neufer's map to make it bigger so i could see where Yellow Knife is. About 250 k to the north of Alberta. Thatsa tooo far north fer me!

Yellowknife was one stop for the Ice road truckers and it was almost too far north for him too. The truck arrived with pieces falling off.. You have to watch something when the skies are clouded up/