Auroras are better to be viewed at the North and South poles when I saw photos through the Internet and newspaper compared to those in parks and cities.Can someone help me here?How do auroras form?Astronomers say that Jupiter also has auroras....wonder why....I not too good in auroras,only astronomy hehe..

Aurorae are a form of spaceweather caused by solar wind and solar storm (coronal mass ejection) activity depressing the Earth's magnetosphere, flowing around it, then having some of the high-energy particles trapped in the "tail" of the magnetosphere when it 'snaps back' into position. These particles funnel down the poles by following the lines of magnetic flux, which intersect the atmosphere above the polar regions.

When these energetic particles hit the upper atmosphere, they ionize some elements and cause others to fluoresce (glow): the color depends on the elements in the molecules involved.

There are good links that further explain auroral activity at SpaceWeather online.

Aurorae are NOT best seen at the geographic poles but rather in a ring that circles the geomagnetic poles.

A quote from http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/English/aurora_borealis.html

"The aurorae appear over the Earth's polar regions in what are known as the auroral ovals; in the northern hemisphere the auroral oval bulges that much further to the south, the stronger the solar wind is at any given moment. The oval normally extends over northern Finland and Scandinavia, the whole of Canada and the northern USA, Alaska and Siberia. In the event of a solar storm, it may reach as far south as the skies over central Europe."

For further information, browse this site and this one. 

Dave Mitsky

Picky, picky ... Good point! Same thing happens with Jupiter and Saturn ... I don't know about Uranus and Neptune, but I seem to recall seeing auroral crown images from at least one of them ... jb

Ok.But you know,auroras are kinda rare,but not so,when we see one,consider ouselves a little lucky.

Actually, they happen all the time.  But they are more easily seen in spring and autumn.  This is because the sun shoots out more particles during these times.  I can see them in Wisconsin.  There should be a lot coming soon.

Some of the photos that I've taken of auroral displays are posted here.

Dave Mitsky

Dave,

That's a fine collection of photographs you have there.

I don't have much that has been digitalized, but here are a couple. I appologize for their quality, they were scanned from so old mishandled prints and all the best have long since been given away. I need to get all the negatives I have digitalized someday. I reduced the rsolution of these even further so they''ll load faster, hope they come out OK.

The first is from along the Chukchi Sea, at about 70 degrees north, facing the pole,Jupiter is inside the whorels of light. The 2nd is from the Beaufort Sea at about the same latitude and shows comet Hale-Bopp. 

Well, I did something wrong. The one that showed up is from kaktovik on the Beaufort. Here's the one with Jupiter

LOL- I appologize again. A thing popped up and said the photo was too big. I'll try and reduce it some more and try again later.

John

OK, here we go again.

johnm wrote:

OK, here we go again.

Nice aurora image.Johnm,would you mind telling me what does LOL means?

LOL----- laugh out loud,

Oh.I see.LOL=

johnm wrote:

OK, here we go again.

Thats very impressive John

Thanks Alan,

During my years working across the Alaskan Arctic I was fortunate to get many thousands  of frames of film. Besides the incredible aurora that almost make you forget the -50 degree temp, the sun puts on fantastic light shows when it's placed so it's just rising and setting along the horizon.

What are auroras named after?

To my knowledge, individual aurorae aren't named. There are several different types and those have scientific names, but I'm not sure whether they have popular names. I'm sure the Inuit peoples have names for them.

Aurora was the name given of the Roman goddess of the dawn. And, logically, aurora is the latin word for dawn.

chipdatajeffB wrote:

To my knowledge, individual aurorae aren't named. There are several different types and those have scientific names, but I'm not sure whether they have popular names. I'm sure the Inuit peoples have names for them. Aurora was the name given of the Roman goddess of the dawn. And, logically, aurora is the latin word for dawn.

Oh?I thought Aurora was named after just a Latin word.

My daughter and her husband live in North Dakota and took some fantastic digital pictures of the Northern Lights.  The colors are excellent.  Out in the remote areas of northern USA (Montana, N. Dakota, Minnesota, and Idaho) will obviously work.

Highlander