By Soumyadeep Mukherjee | 2023-09-10
On 09/13/2023 01:25 am by Diane Rains| Hudson WI USA
Cool Season auroras have begun! Huzzah!
Something rather mysterious happened in the middle of this morning's aurora. My camera caught two images of a massive fireball apparently exploding into fragments. This photo is a composite of those two images, taken 6 minutes apart. I was sleeping while my camera and its intervalometer did the work, so I didn't see what happened in between those two shots!
What was it??? My best guess: human-made space junk falling into Earth's aurora-charged atmosphere. A little odd that it took 6 minutes to fully disintegrate! Perhaps this object dropped several fragments from space into our atmosphere over a longer period of time.
A lovely sight, however it occurred! But I do despair at how humans are trashing space just as they trashed their home world. 😢
Panasonic Lumix FZ200
Composited two images that were taken 6 minutes apart.
Tweaked exposure, noise reduction.