Many people take photographs of the aurora, and there are many web sites with these pictures. When viewing phtographs of aurora, one should be aware that the colors on the pictures are not necessarily identical as they would appear to the human eye. Many of the sensitive films have a slightly different color sensitivity. In normal scenes, this is usually not noticable, the films are designed that way. But the auroral colors are quite unusual, and demand much more from photographic film. Often, the red auroral light on photographs is overemphasized. A Gallery of aurora photos from Fairbanks, Poker Flat, and Toolik Lake in Alaska shows many example. This gallery also includes photos from the HEX and JOULE rocket experiments.
I have a list of web sites with auroral photographs which I update frequently. If you have suggestions for additional sites, please let me know.
Because of the long exposure time that is usually required for auroral photography, making movies of aurora is not easy. Most movies use timelaps photography, so that the auroral motion is sped up when viewing the movie. Here are a few links, let me know if you have suggestions for additional sites.
Movie (280kB) This launch was on Feb 6, 2002, about 1 am. The PI is Craig Kletzing, University of Iowa.
4:00am (990 kB) and 4:40am (650 kB) These two rockets were launched on March 15, 2002. The PI is Kristina Lynch from the University of New Hampshire.
Robert Service has put his impressions of the aurora into several of his poems and ballards. Here are a few examples.
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Here are some pictures which were taken for a Discover Magazine article at the Poker Flat Research Range (Seeing The Light Discover, July, 2000, by Karen Wright). Some have antennas in the foreground and some will show the green beam of the Lidar that was operating at the Davies Center. The Lidar has now moved into its own building.
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