Aurora Over Arctic Henge
Image Credit & Copyright:
Cari Letelier
Reports of powerful solar flares started a seven-hour
quest north to capture modern monuments against an
aurora-filled sky.
The peaks of iconic
Arctic Henge in
Raufarhöfn
in northern
Iceland
were already aligned with the stars:
some are lined up toward the exact north from one side
and toward exact south from the other.
The featured image, taken after sunset late last month,
looks directly south, but since the composite image covers so much of the sky,
the north star
Polaris is actually visible at the very top of the frame.
Also visible are familiar
constellations
including the Great Bear
(Ursa Major)
on the left, and the Hunter
(Orion) on the lower right.
The quest was successful.
The sky lit up
dramatically with bright and memorable auroras that
shimmered with
amazing colors including red, pink, yellow, and green -- sometimes several at once.