Over the weekend Andrew spent a couple of nights camping in the rec area. The aurora has been very active lately and he was tickled with two great nights of shows.
These last few pictures were the highlight of Andrew's photographing....as he was shooting, he saw a flash of white light on the northern horizon which lead to him witnessing a rocket going up into the sky! We have heard about these rockets before and knew that one was supposed to go up sometime soon, but who knew we would actually get photos of it! Andrew said he was shooting 8 second exposures so it took 40 seconds for the rocket to make its way through the frame of the lens. Here's a bit more info from the research station that launched the rocket:
Poker Flat Research Range is the world's only scientific rocket launching facility owned by a university. Poker Flat is located approximately 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska and is operated by the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute under contract to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, which is part of the Goddard Space Flight Center. In addition to launching sounding rockets, Poker Flat is home to many scientific instruments designed to study the arctic atmosphere and ionosphere.
