How awesome is this? A live webcam in Alaska that shows the aurorae! Since it’s live, it will only show the aurorae 1) when they are active, and 2) when it’s nighttime in Alaska. I looked last week and there were plenty to be seen… and if it’s clear you can at least see the stars.
It refreshes every five minutes, giving you a long stretch of (punctuatedly equilibriated) aurorical enjoyment. It’s worth keeping an eye on, especially now that the nights up there are getting longer.
Sigh. No hat tip for this one; I read it on a blog somewhere and then lost the link, so I have no recollection of where I saw this. Sorry, anonymous blog, but thanks!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
…. A Live webcam in Alaska….
That was enough for me to raise the caution flag… LOL Oh, look it’s the Palin’s….
November 5th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Cue Sarah Palin:
“I can see the aurorae from my house!”
November 6th, 2008 at 12:08 am
This is really neat. I grew up in a town that was well within the aurora limits, but have since moved a few degrees south, and I haven’t seen any in 5 years.
Thanks for this!
November 6th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Hi!
Great idea! Where can i find the webcam?
With kind regards!
Okuro Oikawa
November 6th, 2008 at 1:34 am
The Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, which I visited in January, has a live all-sky camera as well:
http://www.irf.se/allsky/rtasc.php
November 6th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Here are links to similair cams in Sodankylä, Finland: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/RealTime/allsky.php and ‘nearby’ Kiruna, Sweden: http://www.irf.se/allsky/data.html
November 6th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Off topic: Hey folks, our man won, can we be gracious about it? Or will you continue to snipe at the losers. My Dad taught me it was bad form to pick on the losers when it was over, leave the poor woman alone. Her behaviour proves to me that she has a lot more class than the first two posters here.
On Topic: Phil, thanks again for a cool link, that is neat!
November 6th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Hmm, I wonder why an Alaskan webcam is provided by a Japanese website?
November 6th, 2008 at 3:17 am
“Sigh. No hat tip for this one; I read it on a blog somewhere and then lost the link, so I have no recollection of where I saw this. Sorry, anonymous blog, but thanks!”
No worries.
I’ve been transfixed by it for the last week or so. It’s just brilliant. I’ve caught two auroral storms in the last week and there’s usually a glow on the horizon every few days, so check back often!
http://willgater.com/2008/10/29/internet-aurorae-or-why-i-must-go-to-alaska-someday/
November 6th, 2008 at 4:04 am
# k9_kaos Says:
Cue Sarah Palin:
“I can see the aurorae from my house!”
So, does that mean she’s qualified to head NASA?
# Togan Says:
Hmm, I wonder why an Alaskan webcam is provided by a Japanese website?
[translated from the Japanese] We can see Sarah Palin’s house from our webcam…
J/P=?
November 6th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Can someone clarify for me (I’ve never seen auroras) – footage of auroras shown on TV shows them swirling around at great speeds. Do auroras actually change at that rate, or is this time lapse photography?
November 6th, 2008 at 4:50 am
Sometimes they swirl, sometimes not so much. Was probably time-lapse photography, but not necessarily.
November 6th, 2008 at 5:56 am
It’s a webcam. It’s giving you a still image that is updated every five minutes.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:45 am
I’ve never seen them as bright and colorful as we see in the alaska images, although I did see auroral glow over antarctica once while nearing the southern tip of South America. Very cool…
November 6th, 2008 at 6:49 am
As Evolving Squid said, it all depends. I have seen some that look very static, and others that were moving quite furiously.
My favorite was on a flight at 37,000 feet over “the northern tier” and they were out. We even pulled out the NVGs to look at them. Was quite spectacular being almost in them.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Togan: According to a Northern Exposure episode, it is great luck (for ther Japanese)to be conceived under an aurora. All the Japanese couples heading upstairs freaked out Holling VanCoeur.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:13 am
em.. actually, it’s “equilibrated”
thanks for the link!
November 6th, 2008 at 7:22 am
anyone that can mention at what time it’s visible in the pictures? Cause I for one couldn’t see jack squat on the ones I browsed.
/P
November 6th, 2008 at 7:29 am
I don’t know where else to ask this, so I’ll ask here.
Phil, your book is available as an ebook from Sony. I have an ebook reader. Does anyone who have this book know if I’d be losing out on anything by purchasing it as an ebook?
Thanks
November 6th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I saw the aurorae when I was a little kid in northern MN. First time seeing them and it freaked me out. My brother and I thought it was aliens (we must have just watched a sci-fi movie not too long before the event). The colors shifted pretty quickly…greens, reds. Quite a sight and even more awe-inspiring once we actually knew what they were.
Then, many years later (in high school, early 90s) after having moved to southern MN, I saw them again, though only faintly. Still, I was very surprised to see them, since I was so much further south and there was significantly more light pollution.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:01 am
I saw the crazy lights when I was in mid Norway years ago. We took a four day trip up to Tromso, and at night everybody was out looking up at the sky. I’ve never seen anything like that before. They’re like sheets of light that sort of glisten back and forth (yeah, totally unscientific description- but they’re beautiful). I don’t remember any red colors. There were more blue and a couple shades of green. And out of three nights they only came out for one night, not sure how that works.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:12 am
My one and only aurora sighting: from Florida! I was driving up I-4 toward Borlando while bright red rays were streaking overhead, like searchlights. The DJ on the radio station I was listening to was saying, “What is going on with the sky?” I guess they freaked a lot of people out.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:27 am
My biggest surprise seeing them in person is that they DO visibly move as you watch them. Sometimes, it almost looked alive as it squirmed around. I can understand that to someone who didn’t know what it was, it could be very frightening.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Todd, when I was a little kid there was an auroral display over Boulder (where I was born and raised). Daddy took us out away from city lights to see them and I was so scared I wouldn’t look… I must have been 4 or so at the time. I shoulda looked…
November 6th, 2008 at 8:51 am
@ccpetersen
Yeah. My brother and I had been outside playing when they started. We ran inside to get my parents, who explained what they were and assured us that the lights were not aliens coming to get us.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:59 am
This is far more entertaining than watching a bloody pilot light in some one’s basement boiler!
November 6th, 2008 at 9:05 am
@IVAN3MAN
Yeah, but you just never know when the pilot light is going to go out. I mean, the suspense is unbearable!
November 6th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Ed:
Lighten up… she’ll be back in 4 years…
November 6th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Regarding Phil’s point #2 – “when it’s nighttime in Alaska”…at this time of the year, there is far more night than day, and soon enough it will be mostly night all the time in southern AK and completely dark 24 hours per day in the north.
I live in northeastern BC, and I see the aurora all the time and I never tire of it.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I visited Antarctica and the aurorae were… I wish I could say stunning, or beautiful, or frightening, or weird, or alien, but I can’t. I only wish they had been there. All that way and not one, nada, zip, niente…
I wonder if Sarah Palin is even aware of the existence of Antarctica because apparently she thinks Africa is a country…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5095495.ece
November 6th, 2008 at 9:35 am
@Michael L
Lighten up… she’ll be back in 4 years…
There you go thinking all Canadian again. The next race for the White House begins in about… 17 minutes.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:15 am
The webcam site seems overwhelmed, any click takes forever to respond. Bad Bad Astronomer for sending so many people on that small site.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:45 am
@ Phil -
Just want to thank you, for letting me post on your blog. I think we’re diametrically opposed on many issues. But, you still let me post.
For that, I want to thank you and say I respect you.
Now, I can go to bed.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:50 am
@Jose… True…
November 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
The LHD will let us find out new things we have never seen before. New things never hurt no one. When are these people going to understand that “the standard model” doesn’t work. No one knows why.
On a related note, a UK bookmaker has lowered the odds on proving that god exists to just 4-1 to coincide with the switching on of the LHC. Article is in the Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3374240/Paddy-Power-offers-odds-of-4-1-that-God-exists.html
November 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Michiel’s Swedish site is showing a bit of green just now! (15:11 EST)
November 6th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
[...] read the Bad Astronomy blog everyday and almost everyday there is something cool on it. Today it has a link to a webcam in Alaska. Mainly to see the auroras. Very cool stuff indeed. Check out [...]
November 6th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
[...] Phil at Bad Astronomy. Bookmark it. Know it. Love [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
The Alaska cam cannot be accessed. Phil broke it.