A vivid look at the northern lights: Your photos and reaction
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The night sky put on a show on Thursday night. We told you the northern lights would be visible in the Rochester area and they were.
Many viewers have been sending us their photos of the aurora borealis. Here are some of these photos and a video taken from Skydeck of News10NBC’s studio on East Avenue in downtown Rochester. You can view hundreds more images sent by viewers in multiple threads on our Facebook page.
One of the best viewing spots was Ontario Beach Park. We spoke to people who came to the park to see to beautiful green and purple colors in the sky.
“I mean they were beautiful. Toward the end of it, you can see these red lights, just a glimpse of them above these streaks of green all the way up. It was absolutely incredible, one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in nature.” Will Cohen-Pratt, who’s visiting from Boston, said.
“It’s absolutely what this city needs and this area needs. It’s a good place to go all through the day and night. I fish here and it’s just a beautiful area,” Keith Rugg of Charlotte said.
It’s been an especially active couple of months for the aurora borealis, which means it’s been especially active for the sun’s surface. The lights are caused by energized particles from the sun, in the form of solar wind, slamming into Earth’s atmosphere.
The particles get stuck in our planet’s magnetic field and push toward the nearest pole. As those particles move and interact with the atomic hydrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere, we get the show. The green is oxygen up in the atmosphere. The purple is nitrogen being hit by those electrons.
The northern lights always show up better in photos. To the naked eye and without that long exposure camera, they’re a little less exciting. But let’s be honest, the northern lights are always a treat.
The easiest trick is making sure your phone is on “night mode.” Androids have a little more control in the camera app and you can mess around with adding long exposure and changing the focus.
If you have an iPhone and want to get creative, consider downloading an app that lets you change settings otherwise locked. Search for a northern light camera in your app store and pick the best one.
Sent by a viewer named Ed.
An image over Lake Ontario in Hamlin, sent by Anne Roberts.
