A green sky...Anyone got any ideas?

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I was out tonight, it was a beautiful night, very little cloud, moderately good seeing 6.5 -7 out of 10 and a bright just past quarter moon. I thought I'd do a messier hunt and try to track down some globs. (what else can you do with a moon like that?) Cold and very dry (which was strange after the rain we've had during the week) no dew anywhere. Even after 2 hours my OTA was bone dry.

At around ten o'clock I noticed something strange, every thing looked green, as though I was looking through green celophane. The sky was noticably tinted green, the stars looked greenish, the few clouds looked green, even the moon had a greenish cast to it. This was with the naked eye and not through the scope. It was too hard to tell through the scope and I couldn't see the moon through the scope where it was set up. The strange thing was the street lights and house lights looked normal.

Does anyone have any idea what might have caused this? It looked amazing.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Sounds like an aurora but that far north???

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

No definately not an aurora Phil. It was too even, no bright spots or streaming. And if we were seeing an Aurora here you guys down south would have been jumping up and down with delirious pleasure down there.

[h0ughy (David)]

You didn't have a few nips of the Baileys Irish Cream did you?

Or it could have been a few laser pointers?, a martian weather baloon reflecting sunlight? refraction of the lens off that telescope suspended under that european weather balloon? Might have to work on what it could have been.

Could it actually have been a aurora tha twas "local' that was only around the middle latetudes. i did note that there was a high level alert yesterday
"A coronal mass ejection (CME) swept past Earth on June 16th at 0900 UT. The impact caused a mild geomagnetic storm, which has since subsided. Sky watchers at high latitudes should remain alert for auroras, however, because a solar wind stream trailing the CME continues to buffet Earth's magnetic field. Intermittent magnetic storming is possible tonight. "

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I could have been then h0ughy. I've not had the pleasure of seeing one before, (aurora) but this looked nothing like any pictures I've seen. And it was very even over the whole sky. It almost looked like someone had mixed Kafir Lime green paint through the atmosphere. It was quite bizarre.

Does Bailey come with a bear on the bottle???

[h0ughy (David)]

is it still too late to just set up your camera and take a widefield shot in hope?

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I went outside before for 10 minutes and its back to normal. From when I first noticed it to when I packed up and came inside would have been about half an hour and it was steady the whole time. It really was like looking through something. Not something that was just high in the atmosphere? Though I suppose if it was aurora I could have been seeing reflected light making everything else look so green.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

What a wierd experience Paul.

Sounds a bit long lasting for Aurora. Also, never heard of Aurora with that description. Still, stranger things have happened.

[fringe_dweller]

Paul, I dont think it was auroras mate - nothing much reported lately - possibly some kind of air glow/gravity acoustic waves? you can only usually see that from very dark skies and then still very rare i think - i have nevr seen it? - if there is any colour, mild to weaker auroras lean to the red with the eye the majority of the time if its on that sort of scale - or mostly just plain whitish glows - looks like (white) light pollution with some car headlights thrown in (or like the old hollywood searchlights they had at movie premieres but in the distance - sort of) moving around the sky, a lot of the time from the mainland.
Kearn

[mch62 (Mark)]

Paul I had my 100mw green laser pointed north east that night to bug you

[slice of heaven]

Might be the greenhouse effects.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I have no idea what it was but it looked really eerie

Sorry Paul. I got your phone message but I was down in NSW for the long weekend so didnt see it, besides, if I was home I wouldnt have seen it coz I drink beer, and beer just dont do that to your vision. Come to think of it, your missus wasnt muckin' about with your tobaccie' was she? Maybe it was the glow from the aliens as they tried to beam you up. or maybe you just got that moon filter caught in your eye socket.

Sorry, just love to every chance I get.

Dennis.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Hi Dennis, Shame you missed it. I wish I had been having a few bears, maybe then I could have explained it. I've been thinking about it all week trying to come up with some ideas.

I've found a couple of references. These are from Jerry Lodriguss' site

"The dark night sky is illuminated by a natural skyglow that is composed of four parts.


Airglow is the brightest component and is caused by oxygen atoms glowing in the upper atmosphere which are excited by solar ultraviolet radiation. Airglow gets worse at solar maximum. Airglow can add a faint green or red color to the sky background. The color may be vivid if there is a strong aurora occuring."

And

"Is the color of the faint natural airglow green?

Yes. Usually you see the 5577A line emission as green as seen in the Gordon Garradd photos mentioned above.

What color are the Gegenschein and Zodiacal light?

They are simply scattered Sunlight, so they are exactly the color of the Sun. (The Zodical Light dust particles are "big" so they don't scatter blue preferentially, unlike the small particles of air, which are roughly the same size as the wavelength of light.)

I've been able to convince myself that the very brightest part of the zodiacal light near the horizon, probably close to the time of astronomical twilight, is right at the threshold of color for me and is a funny turquoise blue-green, i.e. right at the peak dark-adapted color.

If you've ever looked at a discharge tube of oxygen with a simple cheapo replica grating and seen that gorgeous line at 5007A, that's the color, but barely perceived. Chris Schur told me once he sees the color very strongly, but for me it's a marginal thing."

Though it wasn't the Zodical light because it was so even. As I said it was very eerie and bizzare

[RAJAH235]

I just wish I had been there, Paul. My eyes are getting more susceptible to the green end of the spectrum. That's why I use a green LED torch. Old age creeping in? I don't know.
L.

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Hi Paul ... sounds amazing
One lead that may help is an Email to or search of spaceweather.com
They often have "please explain" type articles about Atmospheric phenomenon.
http://www.spaceweather.com/
This is one of my Fav. space news sites

[Striker (Tony)]

Paul......ring this number....1800 987 324 and ask for a booking...they have a very comfortable couch you can lay on while they ask you some questions.....lol