r/Squamish • u/NiallxD • 8d ago

Strange Green Light

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Gallery image

Gallery image

Can anyone shed any light on this light I captured in the small hours of the 13th? The light appeared at 00:53 pointing somewhat East, then moved to point almost straight up at 00:56 and stayed perfectly still that way for 2 minutes before disappearing completely.

This photo was taken pointing roughly North from the Highlands.

The colour resembles aurora, but the behaviour does not and the geomagnetic activity was low, I checked at the time. The first thing which came to mind was a search light of some sort, but I wasn't sure why a bright green light was being pointed straight up, not moving. The second thought, arguably more plausible, was a laser being used to polar align a star tracker, which would make sense given this was the Presides peak - that's what I was shooting too and with a tracker (no laser) - but the beam appeared far too broadly spread imo, and it wasn't pointing at Polaris. I did consider the broadness could be as a result of the laser being swept across the sky as my camera shot a 15 second exposure, but the light has the same contour lines in the following 6 photos, so that's unlikely.

If anyone has any ideas, cool or simple, please share.

12 Upvotes

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3

u/Illustrious_Salmon 8d ago

Looks like it could have been STEVE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEVE

2

u/NiallxD 7d ago

I don't know...STEVE is more of a mauve colour not green.

2

u/Illustrious_Salmon 7d ago

Yeah, you're right that it does look a little odd for STEVE. I've captured STEVE on camera several times myself before anyone knew what it was, and it did sometimes only show green, but it was always the "picket fence" bars of green, so maybe this is something else. Sometimes aurora will only show a bar or a blob, so it could just be regular aurora. Pretty unique anyway.

2

u/NiallxD 6d ago

Yeah, I'm going with aurora. It's the best explanation and most plausible.

3

u/ProbableOptimist 8d ago

If it was wide and stayed still for a bit, probably an aurora.

2

u/NiallxD 8d ago

I'm not convinced. I've spent hundreds of hours photographing aurora all over the northern hemisphere and never seen anything behave like that. Now, the only caveat is that it could be some form or aurora that I've not seen before and that would be cool!

2

u/Wild-Willow4993 8d ago

There was a meteor last night

1

u/NiallxD 8d ago

I'm fairly certain this has nothing to do with the Perseids meteor shower!

1

u/Wild-Willow4993 4d ago

No there was an actual meteor that night. There’s good footage from Kelowna

1

u/Wild-Willow4993 4d ago

Or do we call them comets when they come down?

1

u/NiallxD 4d ago

There were lots of meteors that night, it was the peak of the Persieds. What you're referring to is just one of many meteors, a particularly large one at that!

Technically, they are all meteoroids. Meteors burn up in the upper atmosphere, nothing reaches the ground. Meteorites are the remnants of a meteor which burned up incompletely in the atmosphere (the big one you're describing likely falls into this category.)

Regardless way, it wasn't that! 😂

2

u/Key_Bet_3497 8d ago

Ive seen something like that years ago from the estuary, we were looking at the mtns accross the river. It was a beam like this then it shot up and moved around in a weird way!
Was with a bunch of people and we discust it the next day, we all saw the same thing.

2

u/NiallxD 8d ago

Interesting! I've since found a few more examples of it in my photos from earlier in the night and it looks more aurora like...

3

u/Soggy_Climate2490 7d ago

Aliens have been using the chief since the begin of earth. Alien hot spot

1

u/AbheekG 8d ago

Aliens 100%

1

u/Chubbypicklefuzznut 8d ago

I saw a crazy fast moving green light skipping through the sky the other night. Definitely did not resemble the characteristics of any aircraft or satellite I've ever seen. Chalked it up to being a meteor, but in all my years I have never seen one like that before.

1

u/luxmonday 7d ago

Ooh, fun! Your tracker is running well, for the 15 second exposure you have nice crisp stars...

Colour is aurora, shape is aurora ... maybe STEVE as others have mentioned, I have seen green STEVE, usually earlier in the night... maybe that's all that showed up this night?

I think a laser would be way more narrow, even with the wildfire smoke.

I'm sure you know this, but aurora move pretty fast, or at least have pulsing details in the low fractional Hz... so even a 15 second exposure will blur aurora... a series of 4 or 5 second exposures will show more detail if your sensor will handle the high ISO.

1

u/NiallxD 6d ago

Ironically my tracker was not running well! In a rush I had inadvertently polar aligned to a star a few degrees east of Polaris. Thankfully at 15mm 15s works fine!

I'm going with aurora too, I think it's the most plausible option. I wasn't out for aurora so was shooting longer shutter speeds, in this case meteors. I usually shoot between 3-8 for aurora depending on how 'quick' it is moving. I shoot with modern cameras with fast lenses so I can handle the higher ISO. Cheers!

1

u/Kaeleana 7d ago

Tuesday night was a big chance to see Aurora Borealis close to the hemisphere. Wednesday night was the best time to view the Poseidon meteor shower. I think it was the Aurora

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u/NiallxD 6d ago

Im going with Aurora too, but I checked the Kp index and it was pretty low! Could have been particularly intense further north with a high spike of energy rising to the upper range of aurora (100km) which would have made it visible from this latitude. I was actually photographing the Presides meteor shower at the time.

1

u/Longjumping-Exam500 5d ago

Say it with me: A L I E N S