The colours of autumn put up one last fight before the monochrome tones take over for the long northern winter. Ness Lake, Northern British Columbia, Canada.
For all the astrophotographers and night sky enthusiasts out there I suggest you check out Bea Gallardo-Lacourt’s new paper “On the Origin of STEVE: Particle Precipitation or Ionospheric Skyglow?”. So we now know that while Steve accompanies an aurora, it is not actually formed by the same mechanism of particles raining down into the ionosphere. The paper suggests that Steve is an entirely new phenomenon distinct from typical auroras, as the POES-17 satellite detected no charged particles impacting with the ionosphere during the Steve event which was studied. This means that is likely produced by an entirely different yet unknown mechanism they call “skyglow”. The skyglow is somehow related to the band of fast-moving ions and super-hot electrons passing through the ionosphere right where Steve was observed. I took this shot of Steve over Circle Lake in Eskers Provincial Park. It was a very dark night so you can see some skyglow in the sky along with some green from the Aurora Borealis in the North to the right of frame. Northern British Columbia, Canada.
Found this juvenile black bear (Ursus americanus) looking for berries across the road from our letterbox earlier this week. British Columbia, Canada.
