Auroras!

Two weeks ago, I finally saw some auroras! On web cam.

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about some Web cams that I started looking at, and interestingly enough, just a few days later, BBC had an article about “seeing the world without leaving your home”. Within the article was three of the web cams that I had written about: Venice, the auroras and riding the Norwegian rails. The article came out just a few days later, or I saw the article just a few days later – what an odd coincidence.

Some updates on those Web cams:
Venice: in the early days, there were almost no people out and about but within the last few days, I have been seeing more people come out and walk around. It could be the timing of when I sneak a peak at the web cams but it was nice to see life coming out. It was not a lot of people coming out but just an occasional intrepid soul.

Norwegian rails: nothing changed in these live web cams. The ride is still just as hypnotic as ever. It is nice to just watch the landscape stream by, contemplating the vastness of the land and wondering about the people living there.

Northern lights or …auroras!: the camera is located in Churchill Manitoba, Canada, and for about a week and a half after I first happened upon this channel, the sky had been too cloudy for anything to appear. Then, I think around April 14, the sky cleared up and I finally saw my first aurora! Watching the green “clouds” ripple across the sky in curtains was thrilling. Sometimes the “clouds” would sit like a fog, doing nothing, and then it would start to move in coils and ripples. After that night, the real clouds rolled in again and I couldn’t catch the auroras until last night. Last night I saw some faint purple or pink color instead of the usual green but the rolling and ripples were there. Pretty soon though, I think I won’t be able to see the auroras because summer is coming and way up in the north, summer means daylight almost 24 hours a day. Last night, around 10:30 or 10:45 pm, there were still some daylight.

Occasionally I will also dip into the New York Times Square cam just to see whether people were coming out (answer: not yet).

I have added a new video which is not a web cam but more of a documentary: Rick Steve’s Europe. These videos are 25-minute documentaries about different places in Europe and they come with history, art, church and cultural lessons juxtaposed with beautiful scenery and architecture. These series are worth watching.