Starship Asterisk*

Northern Lights, West Virginia

Explanation: A gravel country lane gently winds through this colorful rural night skyscape. Captured from Monroe County in southern West Virginia on the evening of October 10, the starry sky above is a familiar sight. Shimmering curtains of aurora borealis or northern lights definitely do not make regular appearances here, though. Surprisingly vivid auroral displays were present on that night at very low latitudes around the globe, far from their usual northern and southern high latitude realms. The extensive auroral activity was evidence of a severe geomagnetic storm triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME)</a>, an immense magnetized cloud of energetic plasma. The CME was launched toward Earth from the active Sun following a powerful X-class solar flare.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

I'll leave it to the rest of you to discuss the aurora itself. For myself, I was so proud of being able to identify important stars here. And the clincher was... kappa Draconis!! (Or kappa Draco, for simplicity.)


Kappa Draconis is one of two blue B-type stars in the entire, large and winding constellation of Draco, the other being zeta Draconis. But kappa Draco is so distinctive for sitting in the middle of a nice little asterism. Look Ma, there she is!!!


And as you can see, that's the Big Dipper skimming the horizon. And to the upper left of kappa Draco is beta Ursa Minor, Kochab.


That line of three stars on the green constellation line some distance to the right of Kochab is kappa Draco and friends!

Of course you know that Ursa Minor is the constellation of Polaris. So where is Polaris in the APOD? Oh, it's off the frame here, higher up in the sky.

And now I'll leave it to the rest of you to discuss the aurora itself!

Ann

P.S. I you are wondering, I'm writing kappa, beta and zeta with lowercase letters, because Simbad Astronomical Database insists I should spell them this way.

Is that a shooting star (aka meteor) off to the left a little above the horizon?

Which ionizes atoms produce which colors again?

Roy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 7:15 pm Which ionizes atoms produce which colors again?

Some more at https://www.space.com/aurora-colors-explained, and these concise diagrams:

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:18 pm Is that a shooting star (aka meteor) off to the left a little above the horizon?


meteor in aurora.jpg

At the bottom of this page, https://www.cloudbait.com/2024.10.10_aurora.php, is a video showing the aurora from dusk to dawn. There are at least two bright meteors, some satellites, some airplanes, and some mystery glints that are probably off of satellites. Busy sky.

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 8:45 pm

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2024 1:18 pm Is that a shooting star (aka meteor) off to the left a little above the horizon?


meteor in aurora.jpg

At the bottom of this page, https://www.cloudbait.com/2024.10.10_aurora.php, is a video showing the aurora from dusk to dawn. There are at least two bright meteors, some satellites, some airplanes, and some mystery glints that are probably off of satellites. Busy sky.

How lovely and relaxing that video is!