Colonnes de lumiere au-dessus de la Bay Whitefish
Image Credit & Copyright:
Vincent Brady
What's happening in the sky?
Unusual lights appeared last week to hover above
Whitefish Bay/>
on the eastern edge of
Lake Superior
between the
USA and
Canada.
Unsure of the cause, the
Michigan-based astrophotographer switched camera lenses -- from
fisheye to
telephoto -- and soon realized he was seeing
light pillars: vertical
lines
of
light
over a ground source that reflect from falling
ice crystals.
As the ground temperature was above freezing, the
flat crystals likely melted as they approached the ground, creating a
lower end to the vertical light pillars.
The red ground lights originated from
wind turbines on
Ile Parisienne, a Canadian Island
visible across the bay.