Yukon Aurora

As seen on the National Geographic News not far from the Arctic Circle, Yukon in the northwest Canada (bordering Alaska) is a right location to view aurora. This all-sky view through a fish-eye lens is made in early May when dark nights are already gone. This is how dark it got near the mid-night. Stars are trailing around the north celestial pole while aurora activity painted the sky in green. Click on the second photo to see this view in a short exposure. As noted by the photographer “I was attending Yukon Badminton Championship so I drove to Tombstone Territorial Park to do some TWAN imaging as well. I planned to capture aurora in the blue sky. According to Heavens Above, solar minimum altitude for May 4 was about –10 degrees at 02:09 and I was shooting for time-lapse/startrail from about 01:00 to 03:00. I was in Yukon over 2 weeks and only 2 nights of aurora, and my total driving from home to Yukon and back was over 7000km!” © Yuichi Takasaka