Northern lights amaze photographers around Ottawa - Action News
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OttawaPhotos

Northern lights amaze photographers around Ottawa

The skies once again captured the capital region's attention Thursday night when a geomagnetic storm sent shimmering aurora borealis its way.

Geomagnetic storm gives rare glimpse of aurora especially through a phone camera

Ottawa residents capture aurora images amid geomagnetic storm

6 days ago
Duration 2:02
A geomagnetic storm on Oct. 10 caused a shimmering aurora borealis in Ottawa and Gatineau, leading residents to head outside with their cameras.

The skies once again captured the capital region's attention Thursday night when a geomagnetic storm sent shimmering aurora borealis its way.

A geomagnetic storm is a disturbance of the Earth's magnetic field, typically triggered by solar activity on the sun.

These storms can causea coronal mass ejection, which sends particles from the sun on a fast wind towardEarth. If these particles interact with our magnetic field, we get the northern lights.

That equation hit the Ottawa area this week, bringing the show further south.

One catch was the lights barely, if all, showed up for many eyeballing the horizon wondering where all the lights from their friends'photos were.

What's key is that they were photos: cameras collect more light than the human eye, bringing life to very dim things.

Thursday night's lights follow the rareasperitas clouds that rolled through on Sunday.

Here's a sample of what it looked like.

Northern lights in the sky over a highway.
Lights over Wakefield. (Stu Mills/CBC)
Northern lights in the sky.
The northern lights over Gatineau, Que., the night of Oct. 10, 2024. (Patrick Louiseize/Radio-Canada)
Northern lights in the sky over a neighbourhood.
Purple northern lights over a tree.
Reddish northern lights over a forest.
The aurora glow over rural south Ottawa. (Rifah Quadiri)
Northern lights in the sky over a river.
Ottawa's Britannia area and the Ottawa River. (Adam Chisvin)