Cocktail Green

A while ago now we had Cocktail Party 2, at Ida's, who lived at the other end of Kalkällan. I didn't have my camera with me so these pics are from Anders. As you can see, in the middle of the cocktail party we were rudely interrupted by an amazing display of the aurora borealis - the northern lights. This despite it being the middle of summer (19th Aug, I think), when I had long ago stopped looking up at the sky hoping to see it as I thought it could only be seen in winter. Apparently a lot were around in April too. That night though, for over an hour we had an amazing display -swirls, streaks, curtains, all in vivid green with tinges of purple. It was amazing how quickly they changed and moved across the sky.

Of course it's very difficult to catch with point and shoot digital cameras, so a bit of photoshopping was done to highlight the aurora.

A few of us were excited enough to drag the others outside to check it out. Catherine is another Melbournian, and Emily comes from Canad... no, Alaska, and has a strange fear auroras and rainbows, so needed the liquid courage to go out. Bengt, a local, was bemused and perplexed at the idea of going outside just to look at the sky. Of course we took our field cocktail making equipment with us, which soon made Ida turn a similar shade of green.

Me, Ida, Emily, Catherine, and Bengt
Anders, self portrait

Emily

Usch!

More Aurora

Actually, last weekend I was in Umeå, just south of Luleå, visiting a relocated Anders who was hosting a(nother) cocktail party to celebrate his birthday. The day before was a fairly major storm, but the Saturday was clear, and stepping out of his apartment to hit the town we had another display of the aurora. Again, no pics, but again it was really spectacular. And of course none of the swedes really stopped to look at it.


So what is the aurora? For lots of good info and explanations head to Nordlys. A bit more on info on the particle interactions are also given here. But basically auroras form when particles of solar radiation which are funnelled to the Earth's magnetic poles (yes there are aurora in Antarctica too), collide with atoms of the upper atmosphere. This causes the electrons in the gas atoms to flouresce; which is to absorb a bit of the impact energy, then release it as light.

For fantastic pictures, click on the Nordlys photo contest link on the top left, and check them out. Don't miss the photos of the year for 2001, 2002, and 2004.

More great pics can be seen if you click here. And if you scroll down this page of swedish explanations, there are some good pics too.