Totally Live Sun on Earth Action!

This is totally cool: a webcam taking images of the northern sky and the aurora b., from the T. Neil Davis Science Operations Center in the Poker Flat Research Range (they launch rockets there!) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  (Whew)

It’s a spherical view (which would be good for projecting on a dome… hmm…), and it’s considerably farther north than most American N. Americans are used to seeing the night sky, but my god, check out that fantastic constrast…  If you look closely, you can pick out some familiar constellations. Pretty freaking cool.

By the way, look over the list of publications for this astronomer T. Neil Davis.  A true scientific powerhouse.  He’s into medicine, geophysics, optics, seismology, and pioneered a measurement of solar/terrestrial interaction called the “auroral electrojet” (which would be a sweet name for a band), and plus there’s a whole science operations center named after him, so he’s got that going for him too.

(Via Phil at Bad Astronomy.  Bookmark it.  Know it.  Love it.)