Pictures of Aurora : Nov 5 2001







These pictures were taken using Marcel's SLR camera, with Kodak ISO 100 film. Exposures range from 30 sec to 5 min. The activity seems to have begun shortly after 9pm EST, and lasted past 11pm (at which time we felt cold enough to start heading back home). Auroras occur when high energy particles from the sun (solar wind) hit the earth's magnetosphere, spiral in along the magnetic field lines and ionize the gases in the atmosphere. Green coms from nitrogen, and red from oxygen, which is more rare, because it requires higher energy particls to ionize it.

On the second last picture you can see the moon (the bright blob) with Jupiter right below it. Saturn is above and to the right; the brighter star in the top right corner of the picture.