The known atmospheric phenomenon called airglow occurs in many shapes and options. Sometimes, it’s just a weak glow slightly above the horizon that colorizing night sky. But sometimes, we can observe it as the AGW – Atmospheric gravity waves caused by weather in a lower atmosphere or space weather. Besides it is a really interesting science discipline, it’s a quite photogenic show. Every color is caused by a different chemical reaction called chemiluminescence. The green color is produced by atomic oxygen at 557,7nm wavelength and its peak 97 km above the ground. Atomic oxygen produce also red color at 630nm wavelength located at altitudes 250-300km above the ground. One way or another, the colors of this phenomenon are definitely hidden before our eyes. In the dark skies, we can observe it with the naked eye as a faint non-colored glow, but thanks to the sensitive cameras, we can even see much more details, colors, structures, and many other beauties of the airglow.
I captured these photographs at the Poloniny dark sky reserve at the same night from 20th to 21st of May 2020. The upper photography is the panorama taken with Canon 6D mod, Sigma Art 28mm on the Sky-Watcher Star adventurer mount.
The second photo is the chosen shots from sequential exposures with a fish-eye lens Samyang 12mm with the Canon 6D.
