Starship Asterisk*

A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland

Explanation: All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am in Iceland, on a quiet September night, much of that night's auroras had died down. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once again. This time, surprisingly, pareidoliacally, the night lit up with an amazing shape reminiscent of a giant phoenix. With camera equipment at the ready, two quick sky images were taken, followed immediately by a third of the land. The mountain in the background is Helgafell, while the small foreground river is called Kaldá, both located about 30 kilometers north of Iceland's capital Reykjavík. Seasoned skywatchers will note that just above the mountain, toward the left, is the constellation of Orion, while the Pleiades star cluster is also visible just above the frame center. The 2016 aurora, which lasted only a minute and was soon gone forever -- would possibly be dismissed as an fanciful fable -- were it not captured in the featured, digitally-composed, image mosaic.

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Hard to recognize even the simplest constellations without the
annotations! Nicely done! The Aurora is nice too!

Umm, so is this a real image or what? I'm still not sure even after following all the links.

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:59 pm Umm, so is this a real image or what? I'm still not sure even after following all the links.

It is an image of a real event. Like nearly all astronomical and nightscape images, it is processed to enhance details that would not be so apparent to our eyes. At a minimum that means setting black and white points (which increases contrast over the naked-eye scene), and generally boosting the saturation to bring out color that our eyes don't see well in dim lighting.

really unrealistic reality. well, there are so many unrealistic things in the world.

Sometimes, in your soup, the arrangement of the beans sends you messages from GOD. Bow down! Acknowledge the CRATER (oops, I meant to say...)

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:29 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:59 pm Umm, so is this a real image or what? I'm still not sure even after following all the links.

It is an image of a real event. Like nearly all astronomical and nightscape images, it is processed to enhance details that would not be so apparent to our eyes. At a minimum that means setting black and white points (which increases contrast over the naked-eye scene), and generally boosting the saturation to bring out color that our eyes don't see well in dim lighting.

Ok, so it was "processed and enhanced" like most good pics of astronomical or atmospheric phenomena, but nothing was done to deliberately manipulate the image to make the aurora look more like a phoenix, such as adding lines, brush strokes, etc. But I still can't find a clear statement of that fact from the image author. He seems to like to be coy rather than definitively explanatory. I wonder how phoenix-like this aurora looked with human eyes.

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:53 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:29 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:59 pm Umm, so is this a real image or what? I'm still not sure even after following all the links.

It is an image of a real event. Like nearly all astronomical and nightscape images, it is processed to enhance details that would not be so apparent to our eyes. At a minimum that means setting black and white points (which increases contrast over the naked-eye scene), and generally boosting the saturation to bring out color that our eyes don't see well in dim lighting.

Ok, so it was "processed and enhanced" like most good pics of astronomical or atmospheric phenomena, but nothing was done to deliberately manipulate the image to make the aurora look more like a phoenix, such as adding lines, brush strokes, etc. But I still can't find a clear statement of that fact from the image author. He seems to like to be coy rather than definitively explanatory. I wonder how phoenix-like this aurora looked with human eyes.

I believe this came up when the image was first posted, a few years back, and an examination of the raw images demonstrated no fakery.

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:08 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:53 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:29 pm

It is an image of a real event. Like nearly all astronomical and nightscape images, it is processed to enhance details that would not be so apparent to our eyes. At a minimum that means setting black and white points (which increases contrast over the naked-eye scene), and generally boosting the saturation to bring out color that our eyes don't see well in dim lighting.

Ok, so it was "processed and enhanced" like most good pics of astronomical or atmospheric phenomena, but nothing was done to deliberately manipulate the image to make the aurora look more like a phoenix, such as adding lines, brush strokes, etc. But I still can't find a clear statement of that fact from the image author. He seems to like to be coy rather than definitively explanatory. I wonder how phoenix-like this aurora looked with human eyes.

I believe this came up when the image was first posted, a few years back, and an examination of the raw images demonstrated no fakery.

Ok, I'll take your word for it.

There is a minor addition to this image. The photographers facebook image (posted 9/2017) is missing what appears to be a crescent moon in the lower left hand corner next to the rock in the water reflection.

see https://www.facebook.com/IcelandicPhoto ... 5427942442

He (the photographer) is quite good at image enhancement as are many others who's images are displayed on the APOD web site. Great image as are many of the others appearing on his facebook page.

Big question: if those stars reflected to the right are part of Orion, then would/could have the waning moons orbit have passed through either the belt or sword of Orion at sometime in history? The moon crosses through the upraised club of Orion on its journey from Taurus to Gemini but to be that far off of today's orbital plane would have to of happened I should guess years ago or some years into the future as the sun moves within and travels around the Milky Way.

The waning moon at this phase for:
January 2017 was in Scorpio-Sagittarius
February 2017 Sagittarius-Capricorn
March 2017 Capricorn-Aquarius
September 2017 Cancer-Leo

Since none of those constellations are noted in the overlay then I would guess the image on facebook more reflective of the September night sky absent the waning moon. Or am I missing something...

Mike Gillett