Steve made a spectacular appearance running east/west right above Ness Lake this week. While related to the Aurora Borealis (or Northen Lights) ‘Steve’ is a discrete optical phenomenon that was only formally discovered in 2017 by aurora watchers from Alberta. It was subsequently determined to be caused by a 25 km wide ribbon of hot gasses at an altitude of 300 km, temperature of 3000 °C and flowing at a speed of 6 km/s (compared to 10 m/s outside the ribbon). The name "Steve" was taken from Over the Hedge, an animated comedy movie of 2006, in which its characters chose that name for something unknown. "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement" was suggested as a backronym of Steve which has since been adopted by the team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center studying Steve.
The shot shows Steve on the right (light pink) with a picket fence aurora (green) on the left. There is an unknown interaction between the atmosphere and Steve that often causes the picket fence aurora along the side of it. The shot was taken on a Canon 6D II with a Samyang 14mm 2.8 at f2.8, ISO 3200, and a 13s exposure time. Its looking towards a small island standing on a still frozen Ness Lake in Northern British Columbia, Canada.
If you would like to learn a little bit more about my background in photography, and see another 'Steve' shot you can read the interview @photofeed did with me here
Robert Downie
Love Life, Love Photography
All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Robert Downie - http://www.robertdowniephotography.com