Corona Extraordinaire - 21/01/05

This Northern Lights corona was right at the zenith and so bright you could see the bright pale green and rosy red streaks of light emanating from all around it. Just above the centre of the image, there should only be one bright star there, but it looks there is a pair of equally bright stars. The right hand "star" of the pair is a little "fuzzy" and is, in fact, Comet Machholz (C2004 Q2) - a very lucky encounter indeed!