Nature's Green

From the photographer: Early in the morning, minutes before the tour group I was leading was to board the bus for Fairbanks, I shot this 12-segment all-sky panorama. The aurora display was in recovery at the time, and three different forms were visible… low toward the south were “patches”, higher in the south was a wide and green “band,” and overhead appeared the eerie “black aurora”… not really aurora at all, but mysterious voids in which the aurora doesn’t appear. Along the edge lies the snow-covered airfield of Chena Hot Springs Resort, colored green by the auroral light.