2 thoughts on “FriendFeed: Beautiful, but ordinary, …”
Sandy Underpants
Ordinary!?!? Like the doofus that posted the pic, I’ve dreamed my whole life of seeing an Arora or the northern lights without going to Canada, and this picture is totally awesome, I can’t imagine how spectacular it was too witness with the naked eye. I was in my backyard late last night looking to the skies in hopes of something just a fraction as cool as this pic, but all I saw were flying saucers and aliens. The usual.
Brendan Loy
First of all, by “ordinary” I just meant that this was a typical aurora display, not some sort of OMG CATACLYSMIC SOLAR TSUNAMI, EVERYBODY PANIC!!!, as you would believe if you trusted Matt Drudge’s news judgment (always a bad idea). I explicitly said “ordinary but beautiful” — I wasn’t denigrating their beauty. Auroras visible on the Michigan horizon are noteworthy, and certainly beautiful, and this may be the first time they’ve been visible in a few years because of the deep solar minimum, but they’re hardly a unique occurrence. Heck, I saw auroras on the horizon in South Bend once. Now, when auroras as visible in places like Arizona and Texas (which does happen on occasion), THAT’S out of the “ordinary.”
Secondly, re: “this picture is totally awesome, I can’t imagine how spectacular it was too witness with the naked eye,” I can almost guarantee you that the aurora looked less spectacular to the naked eye. Horizon auroras generally do. A camera on a 30-second exposure, or whatever, can see much, much more color and detail than the human eye can. The eye could probably detect an indistinct greenish glow, and possibly some vague, barely perceptible ripple-like action, but not too much more than that. When auroras as actually OVERHEAD, they are truly spectacular to the naked eye, but when they’re on the horizon like this, you’re looking at something that’s actually hundreds of miles away, and you really have to strain your eyes to see them.
Ordinary!?!? Like the doofus that posted the pic, I’ve dreamed my whole life of seeing an Arora or the northern lights without going to Canada, and this picture is totally awesome, I can’t imagine how spectacular it was too witness with the naked eye. I was in my backyard late last night looking to the skies in hopes of something just a fraction as cool as this pic, but all I saw were flying saucers and aliens. The usual.
First of all, by “ordinary” I just meant that this was a typical aurora display, not some sort of OMG CATACLYSMIC SOLAR TSUNAMI, EVERYBODY PANIC!!!, as you would believe if you trusted Matt Drudge’s news judgment (always a bad idea). I explicitly said “ordinary but beautiful” — I wasn’t denigrating their beauty. Auroras visible on the Michigan horizon are noteworthy, and certainly beautiful, and this may be the first time they’ve been visible in a few years because of the deep solar minimum, but they’re hardly a unique occurrence. Heck, I saw auroras on the horizon in South Bend once. Now, when auroras as visible in places like Arizona and Texas (which does happen on occasion), THAT’S out of the “ordinary.”
Secondly, re: “this picture is totally awesome, I can’t imagine how spectacular it was too witness with the naked eye,” I can almost guarantee you that the aurora looked less spectacular to the naked eye. Horizon auroras generally do. A camera on a 30-second exposure, or whatever, can see much, much more color and detail than the human eye can. The eye could probably detect an indistinct greenish glow, and possibly some vague, barely perceptible ripple-like action, but not too much more than that. When auroras as actually OVERHEAD, they are truly spectacular to the naked eye, but when they’re on the horizon like this, you’re looking at something that’s actually hundreds of miles away, and you really have to strain your eyes to see them.