Got a call from a nice man, Doctor Tony at 1:00 am Saturday morning.
"Hi this is Doctor Tony Phillips calling with a space weather alert. A geomagnetic storm is in progress. The interplanetary K index has increased to a value of 6 which means auroras are possible in your area now. Be on the lookout for northern lights. Please check Space Weather dot com for further updates and more information."
We like Dr. Tony, because of Dr Tony I was able to capture some wild and crazy Auroras, they covered the whole sky. I signed up with SpaceWeather.com to send me updates on any unusual space weather events when ever they occur no matter what the time, since I am on call 24/7 I figure , hey why not. At the beginning of the summer I just went to Spaceweather PHONE, signed up and I was ready to go. They have called 2 times before, both times it was cloudy, 3rd time a charm. Even got my images on the front page of SpaceWeather.com for a couple days, you can see them in their gallery here.
It was a beautiful night, calm yet so much going on, besides the auroras there was the Milky Way and meteors, time to get lost in the moment and reflect on the magnificence of the night sky.
Auroras are created by the dangerous solar winds interacting with our protective magnetosphere, most of the solar wind's dangerous charged particles are forced away from us by our magnetosphere, but some particles do get through to be trapped in the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere where the collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms, the spent energy of the collisions are turned into harmless light creating the various colors of the auroras.
I'll leave you now with a clip of some of the images I took that morning, I figured out how to put music to my clips, took me forever, but I got it figured out, see what I had to do is in Vista movie maker right under where it says import images, it says import audio, duh, I hate reading instructions.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Auroras Gone Wild
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48 comments:
Love the video :) That telephone call thingy is very cool!
Great auroras.
Nice job.
Thanks for the visit,
Troy
That great stuff Bob!
Hey Bob!
Amazing Auroras pics, Bob! *clap clap clap*
Doctor Tony is so nice, and if you like him, I like him too LOL!
Now, I must confess one thing; I don't usually watch the videos; however since you had so much work on adding the song to this one, I decided to watch it today, and man...what a gorgeous song!!! Who sings it? It sounded like the leading singer of Dire Straits (Michael something)! Great choice of song and great video (from now on I will watch it always) :D!
Cheers and have a great week!
Bob:
Love the post. Love the images, and the meteor looks fabulous on my iMac screen. Love the music too. It's a perfect piece for the images.
You're the man - Starman.
Happy stargazing.
Oooo pretty! Could you hear the auroras also? I'm told that on quiet nights, they make a hissing, crackly sound.
Thanks drowsey. the telephone call thingy is very cool,lol.\m/
Thanks texas travelers and no problem.\m/
Hey Roger thanks.\m/
Thanks max, the name of the artist is Mark Knopfler, you have a good ear, he is the lead signer for Dire Straits. The name of the song is "On Every Street" from the cd of the same name , released in 91' this is one of my fav Dire Straits songs.\m/
Thanks swubird, I thought it fit pretty good, glad you like the images, the song has a cool atmosphere about it.\m/
Thanks marvin, I've heard that as well, although I myself have never experienced it, too busy humming James Taylor songs that night, just came from his concert earlier.\m/
Nice images, Bob. I have only seen these a couple of times in my life. I guess that is one of the drawbacks for living at lower latitudes.
Funny how things come around again. Dire Straits is a favorite of many our age. They are now big favorites with my son's friends. Ages 17-21 or so.
Bob,
Yes, that is his name: Mark Knopfler!
You have a good taste for music, my friend :D!
Cheers
The pictures are cool and the music is great! Dire Straits??
Nice post again, Bob. Thank you!
Thanks Will, I guess good music is timeless.:D :-D
Thanks max, you too!:D :-D
Thanks Susanne, you are right it is Dire Straits, good ear.:D :-D
Excellent shots Bob! You're already seeing auroras?
I hope that's not a portent to a cold winter ahead.
Have a great week my friend.
~JD
Terrific! its funny if you dont click on the actual picture it looks like a shot in the middle of a cloudy day. Stunning Auroras - and funny post too - with the auroras gone wild and such. Also beautiful galaxy pics. Can I make a request for more galaxy pics - I love those.
Also i took my first astrophotograph last night -Using a 6" reflector telescope and small digital camera - I snapped one of the moon. It didnt come out very good - i'll leave it up to the experts but it was fun.
MAGNIFICENT, BOB!!! I have only caught a few auroras in my life. What super hues you saw.
JJ :D
Hey JD thanks and hope not, I hate cold winters lol, we had a cold one last year, very little snow and very few Auroras.\m/\m/
Thanks Jesse, I love Milky Way shots too, problem is You have to have clear Moonless night skies, which doesn't happen that often.
Congrats on your first astro shots, I remember my first shots of the Moon, didn't even look like it, kind of all white, takes a while to get it right, don't give up, just takes practice.
A 6" reflector is a decent size and should give you lots of available targets to choose from for viewing depending of your location of course, city, country.\m/\m/
Thanks JJ, they were pretty awesome for sure.\m/\m/
Wow, those pictures are awesome! I loved the video. does it look the same in person as the pictures? Just curious.
Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby
I love the photos in this post :)
hope to hear from you, take care! Monika
You're so cool.
I'm glad I'm not on call though.
I have never seen the auroras but have always wanted too. You photographed them beautifully. Too cool about the phone calls.
I'm glad on the third call you got a break and were able to catch the auroras. Congrats on getting on the front page of Spaceweather! One day you will be FAMOUS for your sky works!
The auroras look great. I always thought they were more from refraction of particulates in the atmosphere than the collisions you describe. A big DUH for me...
Damm the moon is gold tonight Bob, I bet your photographing it!
Hey why don't you enter a photo in my Creative Photography contest Bob?
Thanks angelbaby, you would love them live, images just don't do them justice.\m/\m/
Thanks Monika, I'll have to visit your site, thanks for dropping by.\m/
Lol, thanks Ruth, yeah it sucks 24/7\m/
Thanks Kathy, there are very awesome, it's too bad you never seen.\m/\m/
Thanks Lynda, hey we all learn something new everyday, cool now you know more about Auroras!\m/\m/
Lol, Roger you are a mind reader, just got back from imaging the Moon and Jupiter, hey, look off to the top right of the Moon, that bright object is Jupiter. I will have to start to enter something, thanks Roger.\m/
Beautiful auroras!
http://www.teamgdipro.com/queyous8
wow! sick!
Cheers to the Doctor guy too!
Wow. The auroras are so cool. I'm visiting your site from work - and cannot view the video...
:-( :(
Thanks motionsinvisibles!!\m/\m/
Lol, thanks priyank!\m/\m/
Hey Shirley, hopefully you can get to a site where you can view it, they are pretty cool.\m/
Hi Bob! Loved the images and congratulations on having them published at spaceweather.com.
I can't wait to tell my wife that I know someone famous.
Now, can you tell me where the "any key" is? as I can't seem to find it.
Take Care,
Peter
Lol, thanks so much Peter, I won't forget you when I am famous,lol.
As for the any key, don't quite know what you mean, have lots of any keys from work, if you want to go 24/7, I can give those to you,lol.\m/
Just awesome, man.
Hey genie thanks.\m/\m/
Wow Bob these are really cool! BTW anything in your house get affected by this activity, like TV? Anna :)
Thanks Anna, no nothing gets affected, except me with lack of sleep,lol.
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