Fire in the Sky

Presenter(s): Ray Johnston

Affiliation(s): AAQ

Session details: Sunday, 2012-04-07 23:00:00, TBA

Abstract

The Northern Lights can appear abruptly, filling the sky at an incredible speed with great arcs as ghostly wisps in green, yellow, red and violet dance above the horizon and just as suddenly, they are gone. A group of Aussie enthusiasts, led by the irrepressible Prof Fred Watson AM, chased these ethereal lights by dog sled, reindeer sleigh, snowshoe, snowmobile, super jeep, plane, train, bus and boat across the frozen landscapes of Norway, Sweden and Iceland. They dodged vicious Vikings, ferocious Trolls and explosive volcanoes and still had time to engage in Arctic astronomy, view Tycho Brahe’s extraordinary underground observatory, the Esrange Space Centre and the great Kvistaberg and Onsala Observatories

Biography

Ray is a regular NACAA attendee and operated the Great Barrier Reef Observatory on Hamilton Island for 18 years. He is now resident in the Wide Bay area, where he is secretary of the Hervey Bay Astronomical Society. Ray has a keen interest in archeo-astronomy and astro travel (that’s astronomy tourism here on Earth!) and has presented on these subjects to previous conventions. He is also an invited astronomy lecturer on Cunard and Princess cruise ships.