Thursday, February 02, 2012

Aurora down south



Victoria had it's own aurora last week but I wasn't near enough to Flinders to see it.


The sunspot activity showered particles on the Earth, that excited oxygen atoms high in the atmosphere which emitted a red glow as they fell back to their ground state. Oxygen atoms lower in Earth's atmosphere would glow green.


So here is a photo of the aurora just visible above the horizon near Flinders, our own Flinders, Victoria. Also seen in the photo is the central disk of the Milky Way Galaxy on the left and the large and small Magellanic Cloud galaxies on the right.
 
The photograph was taken by Alex Cherney.

7 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

You do find some truly beautiful things to share. Thank you.

Ann ODyne said...

yes, what El Chi said above, and drat drat, I will be right at that very Flinders spot on Tuesday and that just proves the adage Timing, is everything, or not.
Auroring away now ...

Fen said...

oh gorgeous. I have friends in Flinders, I wonder if they saw it.

JahTeh said...

EC, I thought we might get some good photos from Tassie but never thought of Flinders.

Annie O, Apparently staying up all night watching stars is the key and we're too old for staying up all night.

Fen, I'd love to have seen it myself.
Alex Cherney takes these brilliant shots of the Milky Way and I posted one last year. It was the band of stars across Loch Ard Gorge, really beautiful.

R.H. said...

Lissie Elisabeth of Women's Weekly style 1950 told me I'd get a nicer reception now that my photo with the dogs is up but it turns out I'm having one of the worst trots ever. Maybe I need a trip back to Venus Bay where the stars at night are beyond controversy, rudeness, everything.
Peace, man.

JahTeh said...

The trouble is, Robbert, the photo isn't big enough for a dart board without hitting the goggies.
Would you like me to abuse you and make you feel better?

Middle Child said...

That is so very beautiful. i remember my mum told me that in the mid 1930's her father saw it from his farm at Upper Rouchel east of Scone NSW - seems a long way up but maybe was much darker then and it was a one off - but he was well read and knew what it was..