Hello everybody!

Here's the latest article from the Astronomy site at BellaOnline.com.

Citizen Science in the Electronic Age
How many, and what kinds of birds are there around? How do we classify a million galaxies in sky survey images? How dark is the sky? Citizen scientists help to find out all of these things – and more. You could be a citizen scientist too.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art19533.asp

The Sun has been in the news lately. On January 19 a coronal mass ejection (CME) sent a cloud of high energy particles our way. When it arrived, there were ground current surges in northern Scandanavia - fortunately, not enough to cause damage to electrical or generating equipment. But there were some spectacular aurorae.

This is a picture taken in Alaska. The auroral shape is called a corona – it's an effect created when the aurora is directly overhead. http://spaceweather.com/images2012/22jan12/alaskacorona.jpg?PHPSESSID=h011qcup84s9k9c5oqe8kb0cp3

And here is a time lapse video that Ørjan Bertelsen made on January 22 near Tromso, Norway. http://vimeo.com/35586157 It's fantastic on full screen. If it runs a bit slowly, you might want to turn the music off.

A few days later a second CME arrived creating even more spectacular aurorae, some activity seen even as far south as Michigan and South Dakota in the USA.

“Aurorae – Polar Light Shows” will tell you more about aurorae:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12312.asp

I wish you clear skies.  Please visit astronomy.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Astronomy.

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Mona Evans,
Astronomy Editor BellaOnline
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