Categories: AstrophotosAurora

Amazing Astrophoto and Video: Colors of the Sky

A 360° horizon panorama taken from southern Alberta on June 5, 2013, showing the Milky Way, a low aurora to the north, perpetual twilight glow to the north (left of centre) and bands of green airglow across the sky, and the ATV-4 Albert Einstein heading to the International Space Station. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer.

Yep, you really want to click on this image to see the larger version on Flickr. Wow — what a view!!

This is a 360° horizon pan, seen by Alan Dyer — who has an aptly named website, The Amazing Sky. This is a view seen from southern Alberta on June 5, 2013, and there is a lot going on in this image. Alan described it on Flickr: “There’s the Milky Way arching across the sky on the right, a low aurora to the north, perpetual twilight glow to the north (left of center) and bands of green airglow across the sky. Left of the house and also left of the main area of Milky Way are horizon glows from urban light pollution. A satellite, the ESA Einstein ATV going to the ISS, is at left of frame.”

I get extremely excited if I can see *one* of those things in a night, and here Alan has captured all at once — superb!

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But wait, there’s more!

On June 10, Alan was able to take a timelapse of the Northern Lights and some noctilucent clouds, and it is gorgeous. See below:

Alan said on his website, “This was certainly one of the best NLC displays I’d seen and my best shot at capturing them.”

Find out more about this video here, and Alan shared his technical data on the image:
The Panorama was stitched in PTGui software from 8 images taken at 45° spacing with the 8mm lens at f/3.5 on the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 3200. Each is an untracked 1 minute exposure.

© 2013 Alan Dyer

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/