
This photo features a green aurora framing the arc of the Milky Way over Jökulsárlón, the largest glacier lake in Iceland. It was taken on March 10, 2011 by photographer Stephane Vetter. The photographer combined six exposures to capture not only two green auroral rings, but their reflections off the serene lake. Visible also are the Pleiades open clusters of stars, and the Andromeda galaxy. A powerful coronal mass ejection from the Sun caused auroras to be seen as far south as Wisconsin, USA.
The picture was a first-prize winner in the Second International Earth and Sky Photo Contest’s “Beauty of the Night Sky” category, 2011.






