02/12/2024
This is a two-segment vertical panorama of the sky-filling aurora of February 10, 2024, as seen and shot from the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. This was a Kp4-level display though that was an unexpected level of activity this night. Predictions had been calling for only Kp1 or 2 at best.
But a surprise coronal mass ejection impacted Earth this night and raised the auroral activity up a couple of notches on the Kp scale, resulting in a more extensive sky-filling display with more active motion and multiple curtains and bands. Here the main arc stretches overhead at the zenith at top.
This is looking north, with the Big Dipper at right of centre.
To include this sweep of aurora I shot two segments, bottom and top, and blended them manually in Photoshop as no pano stitching software would do the job. Each segment is with the TTArtisan 11mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Canon R6 at ISO 1600 for 15 seconds each.
