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A Colourful Aurora Panorama (September 16, 2024)
Aurora from Home-Sept 16 Panorama #1-Equirectangular.jpg
This is a 360° panorama from left (southeast) to right (northeast) and extending from the horizon to the zenith, taking in the entire sky during an outburst of a particularly colourful aurora on September 16, 2024. This was from home in southern Alberta.
The numbers were indicating a Kp index of 8 this night, though the peak was earlier in the evening before it got dark at my location. The aurora was well underway in the darkening twilight, but underwent a major outburst at about 9:20 pm MDT when I shot this panorama.
The brightest part of the display captured here lasted only a few minutes before the show settled down into fainter pulsating patches and curtains.
But for a few minutes the curtains converged to the magnetic zenith at top left to produce a coronal outburst that was bright to the eye, and pinkish-white here. The outburst was notable for its strong pinks over much of the sky, likely from nitrogen molecules glowing, indicative of a very energetic rain of electrons. Also present are the more usual yellow-greens from oxygen, and briefly at left some strong oxygen reds. The bright object at left is the almost Full Moon. Arcing across the south left of centre is a diffuse blue-green band, which might be a proton aurora with hydrogen-beta emission. The sky is blue from moonlight.
At left of centre at top are the Summer Triangle stars, with Deneb (left) and Vega (right) strongly distorted by the geometric projecton which stretches out the zenith content. At right is the Big Dipper, Polaris and Cassiopeia. North is at right toward Polaris. The Moon is in the southeast. Saturn sits just left of the Moon. Later this night at about 5 am (on Sept. 17) the Moon occulted Saturn as they were going down in the southwest.
The light at lower centre is another camera shooting a time-lapse.
Technical:
This is a panorama of 12 segments (at 30° spacing for generous overlap), shot in quick succession, each 4 seconds long with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm lens at f
The numbers were indicating a Kp index of 8 this night, though the peak was earlier in the evening before it got dark at my location. The aurora was well underway in the darkening twilight, but underwent a major outburst at about 9:20 pm MDT when I shot this panorama.
The brightest part of the display captured here lasted only a few minutes before the show settled down into fainter pulsating patches and curtains.
But for a few minutes the curtains converged to the magnetic zenith at top left to produce a coronal outburst that was bright to the eye, and pinkish-white here. The outburst was notable for its strong pinks over much of the sky, likely from nitrogen molecules glowing, indicative of a very energetic rain of electrons. Also present are the more usual yellow-greens from oxygen, and briefly at left some strong oxygen reds. The bright object at left is the almost Full Moon. Arcing across the south left of centre is a diffuse blue-green band, which might be a proton aurora with hydrogen-beta emission. The sky is blue from moonlight.
At left of centre at top are the Summer Triangle stars, with Deneb (left) and Vega (right) strongly distorted by the geometric projecton which stretches out the zenith content. At right is the Big Dipper, Polaris and Cassiopeia. North is at right toward Polaris. The Moon is in the southeast. Saturn sits just left of the Moon. Later this night at about 5 am (on Sept. 17) the Moon occulted Saturn as they were going down in the southwest.
The light at lower centre is another camera shooting a time-lapse.
Technical:
This is a panorama of 12 segments (at 30° spacing for generous overlap), shot in quick succession, each 4 seconds long with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm lens at f
- Copyright
- © Alan Dyer/AmazingSky.com
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