The Marginalian
The Marginalian

AuroraMAX : Watch The Aurora Borealis Live

The Aurora borealis is one of nature’s most incredible, awe-inspiring phenomena. Now, thanks to the Canadian Space Agency and University of Calgary, you can watch it live from the comfort of your HD laptop. AuroraMAX is a brand new live online observatory for the northern lights, streaming from the outskirts of the city of Yellowknife, Canada.

Every night, you can tune in for a near-real-time view of nature’s light show, courtesy of a camera equipped with a fish-eye lens that captures an image of the entire overhead sky every ten seconds.

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AuroraMAX is a five-year educational and public outreach initiative that features live broadcast of the Northern Lights from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The project is designed to raise awareness of the science of the Northern Lights, and how the Sun’s relationship with Earth can affect our daily lives.”

An archive allows you to see recent aurorae and features some breathtaking timelapse videos taken earlier this spring while testing the camera equipment. The site also offers a digestible explanation of what the aurorae actually are, as well as some trivia-worthy factoids about them. There are even helpful tips on photographing the northern lights.

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On a technical aside, we’re particularly impressed that the CSA had the sensibility and ambition to make both Flash (boo) and HTML (yay) versions of the site.

via GMSV


Published October 1, 2010

https://www.themarginalian.org/2010/10/01/auroramax/

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