Starship Asterisk*

Aurora Dome Sky

Explanation: It seemed like night, but part of the sky glowed purple. It was the now famous night of May 10, 2024, when people over much of the world reported beautiful aurora-filled skies. The featured image was captured this night during early morning hours from Arlington, Wisconsin, USA. The panorama is a composite of several 6-second exposures covering two thirds of the visible sky, with north in the center, and processed to heighten the colors and remove electrical wires. The photographer (in the foreground) reported that the aurora appeared to flow from a point overhead but illuminated the sky only toward the north. The aurora's energetic particles originated from CMEs ejected from our Sun over sunspot AR 6443 a few days before. This large active region rotated to the far side of the Sun last week, but may well survive to rotate back toward the Earth next week.

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The position of the North Star seems low. I'm in Brookfield, Wisconsin, which is south of Arlington, and Polaris is never that low in the sky.

TedH wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 12:19 pm The position of the North Star seems low. I'm in Brookfield, Wisconsin, which is south of Arlington, and Polaris is never that low in the sky.

A wide angle image like this is strongly distorted. You can't compare what it shows to what your eye sees.

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 4:06 am and processed to heighten the colors and remove electrical wires.

But I can still see those wires!

This photo beautifully captures a phase of the aurora I saw from New Hampshire (4N) the same night. To me it looked like a giant onion with the base on the northern horizon and the tip just south of the zenith. I spent 6 hours marveling at the sky and every hour or so the aurora morphed into something new: the onion, pillars, flashing blobs about 10 degrees in size, jump rope type waves of light with each end of the rope held on the east and west horizons with each wave only taking a second to two to rise from the northern horizon to the zenith. It was amazing!