Starship Asterisk*

Thanks to all for your responses to my query. From them I now realise that the "eerie, greenish glow in the clouds" is likley to be the faint pale greenish to pinkish area in the clouds below the Northern Cross and beyond the cinder cones. It is so pale though (at least on my monitor) that I never even noticed it (until now) and thought with it being mentioned in the explanation it would be very obvious. In the image description in Wally Pacholka's website it states "The Milky Way is seen in the distance stretching across the sky above the beginnings of a sun rise (the red glow). The golden colored clouds are lit by the street lights of the city Hilo, and to the right the red glow through the clouds is lava exploding into the ocean", so the red area above the horizon near the centre is the rising Sun. Having originally thought that the yellow strip below that red area was the glow of the street lights (but not appearing green) I then assumed that the short yellow bit further right is the exploding lava but I now think the lava may be the longer yellow strip beneath the red area where the Sun is rising. What the short yellow strip is I therefore do not know unless it is a small area of exploding lava.

I hope that makes sense! I apologise if I have caused any confusion and that I should have worked all that out, but I find it odd that Wally Pacholka gave no mention of an "eerie, greenish glow" yet the explanation does and the latter also has no mention of the lava nor the rising Sun.

DavidLeodis wrote:Having originally thought that the yellow strip below that red area was the glow of the street lights (but not appearing green) I then assumed that the short yellow bit further right is the exploding lava but I now think the lava may be the longer yellow strip beneath the red area where the Sun is rising. What the short yellow strip is I therefore do not know unless it is a small area of exploding lava.

The large area under the red is certainly the lights of Hilo. It's the only thing to the east, and there is no lava flowing near Hilo. The smaller yellow strip towards the right is almost certainly another town- there are several to the south with a few thousand residents, so that amount of light makes perfect sense. I'm skeptical that the light of any lava flows is visible in this image. If it is, it must be very subtle.

Thanks again Chris. Your input is appreciated.

This is (well at least to me!) a very confusing APOD.