This picture is a composite of 86 exposures, each 90 seconds and spanning 2+ hours. The red and green lights are from the rare Aurora Borealis seen in Maryland on a clear, moonless night. The bright, curved streaks are from aircraft landing or taking off from BWI airport. The lighter straight lines come from aircraft at altitude. A time-lapse "movie" (animated GIF) of one hour of such photos can be seen in the next two GIF files.

This is a time-lapse animated GIF "movie" spanning one hour with 40 images, each a 90 second exposure. In addition to watching the Aurora come and go, note the stars moving across the sky. Polaris is in the upper right and the Big Dipper is in the lower left, skimming the trees. In this movie, the individual images are ~450x300 pixels. Higher resolution pictures can be seen to the right in Aurora_Big.gif.

This is a time-lapse animated GIF "movie" spanning one hour with 40 images, each a 90 second exposure. In addition to watching the Aurora come and go, note the stars moving across the sky. Polaris is in the upper right and the Big Dipper is in the lower left, skimming the trees. In this movie, the individual images are ~768x512 pixels. A lower resolution pictures can be seen to the left in Aurora_Small.gif.

This picture is a composite of 140 exposures, each 90 seconds and spanning nearly 4 hours. This photo was generated the night following the Aurora Borealis using the same techniques described at the left.