bit more Aurora…

The night sky is disappearing fast. Yesterday was the spring equinox, meaning we have officialy have twelve hours of Sun and twelve hours of night. In reality though; the light is there for quite a while before and after the Sun is above the horizon. This means my chances of getting out and getting great pictures of the night sky are dwindling fast – probably only this week left as the Sun relentlessly gets higher in the sky, on its way to being a permanent fixture in around a month and a half.
There was a big aurora last week – which I slept through! I did catch a few more later in the week though. Got a few pictures but the light show was quite small – just a vague bit of green with a hint of purple.

Next a view looking straight up at the Southern Cross or Crux constellation. The second one is done with a faster exposure, you can see the four stars forming an upside down crucifix in the centre of the picture. There are two bright stars to the right of it, the one furthest right is our nearest steallar neighbour Alpha Centauri, around five light-years away from our solar system. (roughly I think – can’t check right now). It’s actually three stars together in one system. one larger, brighter star, one smaller and a third, more recently discovered dwarf star (again – I think! Go check this out and feel free to correct me – plus, its interesting!)

Next is a picture from a bit back – it’s a bit smudgy because it was quite windy out and hence the camera was wobbly but there’s a cool green goblin head up the sky.

A happy goblin, smiling away.