Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade. | | | AURORA WATCH: "We had a very active display of auroras last night," reports Mike O'Leary of Fairbanks, Alaska. Watching alongside, Tara O'Leary says, "this was my first aurora viewing and what a show it was!" The display could repeat itself tonight. The solar wind continues to blow and NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of high-latitude geomagnetic activity: gallery. LAVA AND STARS: "This looks like an ordinary scenic of the Milky Way, but it isn't," says photographer Stephen James O'Meara writing from the Big Island of Hawaii. "The real excitement is the fiery red glow at lower left." What is it? Scroll down for the answer: Photo details: Canon 20D, 229 second exposure, f/4, ISO 1600 If it's Hawaii, it must be a volcano. Photographed on March 14th, "this is first time incandesence from molten rock beneath the surface has been sighted at the summit of Kilauea volcano in more than a quarter century!" he says. "The last time red was seen at the summit crater, Halemaumau, was in April/May 1982 during a brief fissure eruption." O'Meara's close-up shot is truly hot stuff. more images: from Jim Pastore flying in a helicopter above the Big Island of Hawaii. NOT A VOLCANO: Yesterday when the sun set among the waves of Lake Superior in Michigan, Ken Scott witnessed a red glow of his own, but despite a cursory resemblance to Halemaumau, it was not a volcano: The "eruption" is a sun pillar. Plate-shaped ice crystals fluttering among the clouds offshore caught the rays of the setting sun and spread those rays into a vertical column of light. "The pillar started out below the sun. Then it shot upwards as the sun set," describes Scott. He angled his camera to position the pillar just behind a mountain-shaped pile of snow and voila--"an ice volcano." more images: from Jerry Mitchell of Lake Kabetogama/Voyaguers National Park, Minnesota; from Lois Reinert of Tracy, Minnesota; from Stephen Ames of Hodgenville, Kentucky; |