Legal Research

The Friday Fillip

By Simon Fodden

We southerners are rarely able to see the stars, let alone the true spectacle of the heavens, the aurora borealis. But never fear: the internet to the rescue. The Canadian Space Agency maintains the AuroraMax Project, which features a web cam pointed at the Yellowknife sky — after dusk, natch. So the insomniacs among us can watch live as the northern lights play up in the ionosphere.

Now, Yellowknife is currently on Mountain Daylight Time, 6 hours off GMT, with sunset at around 7:20 p.m. local time. If you’re not prepared to stay up to catch the best of this cosmic son et lumière, you can check out the time-lapse video from any date, and, indeed, go straight to the Space Agency’s pick of the pops — nights when things went truly, wonderfully haywire.

The camera takes a fish-eye view straight up, so far as I can tell, so you’ll see a fringe of trees around the perimeter. And should you happen upon an extremely bright object that flares out much of your view, you’ve likely come across the moon; so you might want to pick a night with no moon or a time after the moon has set.

Oh, and I meant it when I said “son” along with “lumière.” I swear that I have heard the northern lights crackle and pop. And I’m not the only one. But the Space Agency cam doesn’t have a mic, so you’ll have to be your own Foley artist and gently crumple cellophane while you’re watching. (Cellophane? Er, that’s an early form of ?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on October 08, 2010 (boomark / email).