Alaska Aurora — Over Frozen Lake
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A full KP-6 aurora borealis display above a frozen lake in interior Alaska — the green and magenta corona structure reflected in a meltwater pool on the ice surface, Denali’s silhouette on the horizon.
Description
Interior Alaska — away from coastal light pollution and at sufficient latitude for frequent high-activity aurora events — provides some of the world’s most accessible aurora borealis photography opportunities. This photograph was made on the frozen surface of a lake in the Alaska Range foothills at -28°C, during a KP-6 geomagnetic storm that produced a full corona aurora — the rarest and most dramatic form, where multiple curtains appear to radiate from a single point directly overhead. The aurora colours — predominantly green from oxygen at 100km altitude, with magenta from nitrogen ionisation at higher altitudes — are reflected in a thin meltwater pool that had formed on the ice surface during the previous day’s brief above-freezing temperatures before refreezing with a clear, mirror-quality surface at night. The silhouette of the distant Alaska Range provides a geological anchor to what would otherwise be a purely celestial composition.
