Aurora / Meteor Shower Images   

The following photos of the Aurora Borealis were taken in Caledon, Ontario, which is located approximately 50 kilometers or 30 miles (as the crow flies) north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  We don't live in igloos here, in fact the latitude here is equivalent to Monaco, Nice (France), Florence (Italy), Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Bucharest (Romania), Portland (Oregon), and Green Bay (Wisconsin).  You don't necessarily have to be in the Arctic to see beautiful displays of Aurora Borealis, if the conditions are right and the Geomagnetic Storm is strong enough, you can get a great show at lower latitudes.

We are currently in the midst of a Solar Minimum cycle for sunspots which occurs roughly every 11 years, which means that sunspot activity on the Sun will probably be very low.  Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) from sunspots are usually responsible for the geomagnetic storms which produce the Aurora Borealis displays.  We probably won't see activity similar to the photos below for a few more years, but you never know when a sunspot might unleash an Earth directed CME!  If you would like to know what's happening with Aurora activity, refer to this site:  http://www.sec.noaa.gov/

Aurora Borealis - November 20/21, 2003

Nikon D100 Digital SLR, 14mm lens (21mm effective focal length with the D100), f2.8, 25 second exposures at ISO 320

Aurora Oct 8, 2002 -  (Nikon F2 35mm, 28mm lens, f2.8, 15 to 30 second exposures, Fuji Superia X-tra 800 Film)