The vivid dance of the northern lights shimmers over Maine's Moosehead Lake in this spectacular photo by a veteran night sky photographer.
Astrophotographer Mike Taylor of Maine captured the stunning aurora view on Oct. 10 and was awestruck at the celestial beauty.
"I used my flashlight to light paint the rocks in the foreground," Taylor added.
Taylor took the photo at 1:22 a.m. local time on Oct. 10 using a Nikon D600 camera and 14-24 mm at 14, f/2.8, 30 seconds, ISO 2500. The photo was processed through Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS5.
Charged particles from the sun (the solar wind) interacts with the Earth's upper atmosphere triggering the northern lights, such as those seen in this image. The Earth’s magnetic field pulls these particles to either the North or South Pole, resulting in aurora borealis, or northern lights, and its southern counterpart the aurora australis, or southern lights.
To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by SPACE.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
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