Reflected Aurora Over Alaska
			
		
		
			Image Credit & Copyright:  
Todd Salat (AuroraHunter);
 Sky Annotation:  
Judy Schmidt
		
		
			Some auroras 
can only be seen with a camera.  
They are called 
subvisual 
and are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye.  
In the 
above image, 
the green aurora were easily visible to the eye, 
but the red aurora only became apparent after a 20-second camera exposure. 
The reason is that the human eye 
only accumulates light for a fraction of a second at a time, 
while a camera shutter can be left open much longer.  
When photographing an already picturesque scene near  
Anchorage, 
Alaska, 
USA, last autumn, 
a camera caught both the visual green and subvisual red aurora 
reflected in a lily pad-covered lake. 
High above, thousands of stars were visible including the 
Pleiades star cluster, 
while the planet Jupiter posed near the horizon, just above clouds, toward the image right.
Auroras 
are caused by 
energetic particles from the 
Sun impacting the Earth's 
magnetosphere, 
causing electrons and 
protons 
to rain down near the Earth's poles and impact the air.  
Both red and green aurora are 
typically created by excited 
oxygen atoms, 
with red emission, when visible, dominating higher up.
Auroras 
are known to have many 
shapes and 
colors.