Astronomy Picture of the Day - Northern Lights, West Virginia

NASA ^ | 12 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Jonathan Eggleston

[MtnClimber]

Catching up after the power and internet outage due to Hurricane Milton

Explanation: A gravel country lane gently winds through this colorful rural night skyscape. Captured from Monroe County in southern West Virginia on the evening of October 10, the starry sky above is a familiar sight. Shimmering curtains of aurora borealis or northern lights definitely do not make regular appearances here, though. Surprisingly vivid auroral displays were present on that night at very low latitudes around the globe, far from their usual northern and southern high latitude realms. The extensive auroral activity was evidence of a severe geomagnetic storm triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME), an immense magnetized cloud of energetic plasma. The CME was launched toward Earth from the active Sun following a powerful X-class solar flare.

[MtnClimber]

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[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[thecodont]

Beautiful!

[No name given]

Beautiful.

[Deaf and Discerning]

Beautiful!

(I couldn’t of anything else to say...)

[telescope115]

I was out Thursday night attempting to photograph the Moon, but it went behind some trees before I was able to. I looked to the North to try and see any Aurora, but it was too light out.

One of my friends was out in a different location, set up his camera and tripod, and shot what appeared to be nothing but a dark sky. When he went home and opened up his photos on his computer to process, behold, he had captured a beautiful shot of the Aurora.

He had kept his shutter open for “x” number of seconds to gather enough light on his camera’s sensor to get a nice image.

So to capture an Aurora shot,keep the shutter open. I don’t have a dslr, but a telescope and a dedicated planetary camera, so I couldn’t try.