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Second Chance To See The Northern Lights

Aug
5
2010

Aurora

Interesting aurora facts:

  • The solar wind launched by the sun contains clouds of plasma, full of charged particles that include electrons and positive ions.
  • When they reach the Earth, they interact with the Earth's magnetic field, exciting oxygen (green or brownish-red) and nitrogen (blue or red) in the Earth's upper atmosphere.
  • The aurora is usually best seen in the Arctic and Antarctic because that is the location of the poles of the Earth's magnetic field, which tend to attract the charged particles.
  • Both Jupiter and Saturn have magnetic fields much stronger than Earth's. Auroras have been observed on both as well as Uranus, Neptune, Venus and Mars.

 

If you missed the Northern Lights show early Wednesday morning you will have a second chance overnight tonight and early Friday as another geomagnetic storm occurs.

While the Aurora Borealis is normally only observable north of a line from Edmonton to James Bay (the best observing site in the world for Aurora is Fort Nelson BC!) atmospheric conditions and lack of a full moon allows the phenomena to be observed this time round in southern Ontario.

The weakest kind of aurora shows as a green band towards the northern horizon. If aurora becomes more active, you may also see red, pink or maybe blue streamers extending up. The curtains of light will change rapidly, over the course of seconds, and a display can flare up unexpectedly. When you are observing aurora and nothing happens over a long time, don't assume it's over!

The best way to photograph aurora according to Weatherscapes is:

"To use a relatively fast film such as 400 or 800 ISO, or if you use a digital camera, set the sensitivity to this. Wide-angle lenses will capture more of the Aurora, which may extend across much of the sky, so I recommend you to use wide-angle lenses.

Use a large aperture such as f/2.8 or f/4, but don't use the lens' widest aperture, to avoid vignetting (the edges/corners of the frame becoming dark). Typical exposure times are several seconds, such as 5 or 10 seconds, but you should bracket your exposures. Exposure times much longer than that are not good because the aurora will be blurred (it moves quickly).

If you use a digital camera, you can check your photos immediately and experiment with different settings as you photograph. Weatherscapes recommends using a digital camera, preferably SLR." 

Auroras were named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Pierre Gassendi in 1621. The Cree call this phenomenon the "Dance of the Spirits."

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Sources: Weatherscapes, CBC News, Wikipedia

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Mark W. Law has been a writing and journalism fanatic since he was first tagged to write a 3 act ’shadow play’ – in Grade 2! Originally from the wee hamlet of Oyster Bay, BC, Mark has worked in many parts of the world, including almost all of the Canadian provinces, the United States, Europe and even a sand-filled radio station in North Africa. During that time he has written for military and local newspapers, served as editor for a number of online magazines as well as publishing his own popular ezine for new writers and artists – The ThinWire Journal. Mark has also penned more than 100 poems and essays and is an internationally known digital artist. And for anyone who lived in Northern BC during the 1980’s and 1990’s, Mark was the ‘morning weatherman’ on CBC Radio. Opinions expressed in ‘the View’ are his own and do not necessarily reflect Teeswater or Teeswater.Ca.

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This work by Mark W. Law & The Teeswater.Ca Team is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.