When up north, we had one night of the Aurora Borealis. It was too cloudy the rest of the trip, but that first night was pretty phenomenal. My friend Anabelle is a fantastic hobbyist photographer and spent more than an hour standing, sitting and laying in the snow to catch a few pictures of the lights in the sky. And I borrowed a few to post here:
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| The ice fishing hole...doesn't it look like the surface of the moon? |
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| Stu, looking rather like an ax murderer |
So the northern lights are caused by charged particles colliding in the ionosphere, and get stronger the closer one is to the magnetic north pole (though they happen south of the arctic circle as well).
Wikipedia helpfully informed me that it is named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, and Borealis, the Greek name for the north wind. We saw them starting at about 6:30pm, not too long after it was completely dark. They seemed to grow and shrink in green, gold and little bit of purple over the following 2-3 hours, but by 10pm, the sky had clouded up and the show was over. I am so glad we had that first night, though.
[All photos: Anabelle Lacroix]
Wow, that is just so beautiful and cool! Awesome! I have never seen it in real life and I would so much like to experience it some day. I guess I got to travel up to the very north like you did and see this. Great pictures.
ReplyDeleteOh, you should definitely go! It's not *too* expensive for a weekend, and we had such a great time. They have 24 hours of dark from November to early Jan, so avoid that time, maybe. But they have 24 hours of daylights late May-late July, and I think it would be great to go back during that time!
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