Sometimes mistaken for the glow of the northern lights, airglow actually has nothing to do with auroras. Unlike auroras, which are formed when charged particles bombard the Earth's atmosphere, airglow is a type of chemiluminescence that makes the atmosphere glow. The brightest region of airglow is a roughly 10 mile thick zone at an altitude of about 60 miles. We saw strong airglow last night after shooting the Milky Way for a couple of hours. For this photo, I asked my friend to pose on the dock at Chester Lake in Grand Portage State Forest, with the sky glowing beautifully behind him.
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