APOD: Goat Aurora Over Greenland (2012 Oct 03)

[APOD Robot]

Goat Aurora Over Greenland

Explanation: Sometimes it's hard to believe what you see in the sky. During the Shelios Expedition to Greenland in late August, even veteran sky enthusiasts saw auroras so colorful, so fast changing, and so unusual in form that they could remember nothing like it. As the ever changing auroras evolved, huge shapes spread across the sky morphed from one familiar form into another, including what looked to be the head of a goat (shown above), the head of an elephant, a strange green-tailed comet, and fingers on a celestial hand. Even without the aurora, the sky would be notable for the arching band of our Milky Way Galaxy and the interesting field of stars, nebulas, and galaxies. In contrast, in the foreground is a farm house in Tasiusaq, Kujalleq. Greenland. The Shelios project exists not only to observe auroras but to motivate students to consider a career in science.

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[Boomer12k]

Thought it looked like a dragon at first...

And people think I am crazy when I see "SPAWN" in the the Orion Nebula, or that a nebula looks like a Barfing Fly, or a Rock on Mars looks like a pyramid....sheeeesh....

All in good fun....

:---[===] *

[Beyond]

I found it interesting that in the -Milky Way Galaxy- link, the picture that comes up on the very last zoom-out, to me, looks like the surface of the sun done in black & white, minus the sun spots.

[guest81]

somebody was making 'crop circles' in the sky

[madtom1999]

definitely a dragon.

[starstruck]

I saw my first ever perfect 'moonbow' last friday night and it gave me such a buzz! . . and that was just a moonbow, so I simply cannot imagine how incredible it would be to see an amazing aurora like this. Great capture! Thanks for sharing it with us.

Some other great images on the "huge shapes" link too

[DrMick]

Looks like a velociraptor head to me.

[timmy]

It looks to me like a dragon head, in the year of the dragon. Funny how our perceptions effect how we see the world

[glkoen57]

I have never witness an auroras. I have just seen pictures. Do they look like this in real time with unaided sight?

[Canadian Grandma]

That must have been an awe-inspiring sight! I can still remember my awe and delight the calm summer night some 67 years ago that my dad woke me to see the 'northern lights'. The bands and streaks of light covered the whole northern half of the sky--sometimes reaching a bit into the southern half. The colours were pastel--not vivid as in this picture--and there was a whispering, rustling sound like silk fabric being rubbed. Thank you for reminding me of that night so long ago.

[ddorn777]

Now that you said "dragon," I can't see the goat anymore.

Seeing auroras is definitely on my bucket list.

[Joe Stieber]

Uranus is also visible in the picture. There’s a pair of similarly-bright “stars” not far below the “P” in Pisces on the annotated mouseover. Uranus is on the left of that pair, 44 Piscium is on the right (about magnitude 5.7 and 5.8 respectively, roughly a degree apart). Uranus has been in retrograde motion since then, moving from east to west (left to right in the picture), and is now about half a degree to the right of 44 Psc. On the morning of September 23rd, they were just an arc minute apart. Even in suburban skies, the movement of Uranus past 44 Psc has been easy to follow in binoculars for the past month, and from a darker site, they could be glimpsed with unaided eyes.

BTW, on first glance, I too thought it looked like a dragon!

[Langley Rookie]

As a non-expert, but avid APOD viewer, my wish list includes the editors of the page take the time to provide the background compass orientation and time of image which would help identify where background objects can be viewed in the APOD viewer's locale. For instance a "hover over" of the latitude, compass direction, and time of image could help orient myself where to find Andromeda, etc.

For this image (is is just me?) its a toss-up between goat and ghost.

[owlice]

As a non-expert, but avid APOD viewer, my wish list includes the editors of the page take the time to provide the background compass orientation and time of image which would help identify where background objects can be viewed in the APOD viewer's locale. For instance a "hover over" of the latitude, compass direction, and time of image could help orient myself where to find Andromeda, etc.

If you hover over the image, you'll see an annotated version of it.

[Breanna]

I think it looks like an ANGEL! Glory!

[Guest]

A dragon!

[rguyg]

looks like an Irish Setter, if your Irish.

[AstrogirlK]

I see the head of a Qilin, the Chinese chimera-like creature.

[firstmagnitude]

It looks like the Martian from the old 1951 movie War of the Worlds.

[Psnarf]

Reminds me of that guy in the "Night On Bald Mountain" segment of Disney's "Fantasia." If I were a youngling student and saw that, after I stopped running, I'd reconsider that notion of a career in science.

--
Happy Halloween
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYSbxRiUgOo <-- this might not be available much longer (Night On Bald Mountain HD)]

[Chris Peterson]

As a non-expert, but avid APOD viewer, my wish list includes the editors of the page take the time to provide the background compass orientation and time of image which would help identify where background objects can be viewed in the APOD viewer's locale. For instance a "hover over" of the latitude, compass direction, and time of image could help orient myself where to find Andromeda, etc.

It's simply not practical for the editors to do this. Their role is limited to the explanatory captions, not creating image content. Annotations need to be created by the image authors if they are included on the APOD page. Sometimes they are produced after the fact by forum members and added to the image discussion.

[R&EHusky]

Clearly this is Falkor the flying luck dragon from The Neverending Story.

[lorifox]

It is a dragon. An adult dragon. If were a goat I would expect to see horns.

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF]Brünnhilde throws herself on the flames.[/color][/b]

---

<<Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the gods that brings about the end of the world. However, as with the rest of the Ring, Wagner's account of this apocalypse diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources. The German title of the book by Friedrich Nietzsche Twilight of the Idols, written in 1888 and published in 1889, is Götzen-Dämmerung, a pun on the title of Wagner's opera. Götze is a German word for "idol" or "false god". The term Götterdämmerung is occasionally used in English, referring to a disastrous conclusion of events.>>

[Ann]

It's goat in heaven.

Ann