The solar bursts on Monday January 17th caused some splendid celestial fireworks on Friday evening, January 21st. Seldom seen this far south even here in Norway. First picture in a series of three. Those blips running along that diagonal line across the middle is an airplane that conveniently decided to cross the sky at that moment. This shoot was kind of hurried because I almost slept through it all (typical, isn't it, when you finally have a chance to take a nap), and it was almost over when I got started.

Also posted at deviantArt.

If you look closely in front of, or rather behind, the grey car, you'll see a snow dinosaur :)

Also posted at deviantArt.

Had to use 10 seconds exposure to capture these colours. I'm tempted to say that the flare on the right was a UFO sneaking up on me, but it was something as trivial as a streetlight :)

Also posted this at deviantArt

The Van Allen belts are busy tonight. At half past midnight, the downpour of solar wind was drowning out all but the brightest stars. Even in an area such as mine, where the 'pollution' by ambient artificial light is considerable, the drifting, dancing curtains of green and occasional red light are a spectacular view, stretching from zenith to horizon in almost every direction.

This kind of view is normally reserved for people north of the Arctic Circle. Perhaps the Circle has moved south for the winter, or there may be some Aurorean border dispute going on high above our heads, but nevertheless the sky was painted in psychedelic flowing patterns capable of driving any night photographer out of his skull trying to take pictures of it all.

Update: I've posted slightly higher rez versions in the gallery on my website. [11-11-2004]

The eye in the sky, center of activity, the point where all field lines converge. Did you play with magnets and iron filings in physics class in school? We did, and it looked not entirely unlike this.

I have seen I know not how many science-fiction movies, but this really feels like being in one.

Hyperspace, anyone?

All but the brightest stars are drowned out. Here Orion, fighting for supremacy in his personal corner of the sky.

The clouds, usually bright against the black velvet night sky, illuminated as they are from below by the electric lights on the ground, are here competing with the radiation from the upper atmosphere, where the charged particles of the solar wind collide with molecules of air and create a neon lightshow.

It's a Steven Spielberg sky tonight. Any moment now, a Christmas ornament looking spaceship will descend from above to deploy a small, wrinkly fellow with big eyes, a glowing finger and an insane urge to phone home, right here in my back yard. Got my camera ready for'em.

As usual, I used the Ixus for all these shots. Had to step up to ISO400, and shutter times vary from ten to fifteen seconds. It was too dark to see anything through the viewfinder, or on the LCD screen, so I had to just point the camera in the general direction of what I wanted to shoot, and hope for the best. The images are resized, but otherwise unaltered.