Jan 28th, 2016: Airglow

APOD says, "Why would the sky look like a giant fan? Airglow."

The featured intermittent green glow appeared to rise from a lake through the arch of our Milky Way Galaxy, as captured last summer next to Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA. The unusual pattern was created by atmospheric gravity waves, ripples of alternating air pressure that can grow with height as the air thins, in this case about 90 kilometers up.
Unlike auroras powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction. More typically seen near the horizon, airglow keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.

Got that, man, chemicals make you see colors.

Of course some people don't buy that chemiluminescence story, they're sure it's aliens trying to hide stuff from us. What stuff? This stuff.


Could be, man, could be.

Cool stuff.

Oh, and keep your eye on Andromeda - its heading our way at about 250,000 mph.

And this is why, after discovering the link here, I have read every single accessible entry on APOD (which goes back into the 1990s)! Did the same thing with this thread long before signing up :D. Due to my (thankfully) mild OCD, my morning routine is crucially important to me and the webcomics and image blogs I read are the pillars of that routine.

A lake next to Bryce Canyon, huh? I'm going to have to be off to google earth for a minute. I can't picture any lakes anywhere near Bryce.

OK. So there's a reservoir that supplies Tropic with drinking water. Probably the Bryce visitor center too. It's probably that reservoir.

And there's a nice campground right next to that reservoir. It would be good overflow for the National Park.

I used to hit APOD every day. Posted a lot of pics from that site.

Don't know how/why I got away from it...Heading there now.

Very cool pic, Bruce.

Or it could be Pine lake.

I approve this image as the iotd for my birthday.

happy birthday, bbro!

Happy Birthday on You
Happy Birthday on You
Happy Birthday all over You
Happy Birthday on You

:birthday::folks::girlband:

Thanks guys :)