A cold dark crusade and capturing 'Steve over Berg Lake'

I spent two years on a cold dark personal crusade documenting 'Steve'. Numerous nights in dark remote frozen places; this is the pinnacle of that work. A rare capture of natures most amazing display, that went viral, and became the basis of a scientific paper. Fusion of art and science; a piece of scientific history.

The ESA satellite did not detect any charged particles raining down toward Earth's magnetic-field lines in the area of Steve. As such Steve is not the Aurora Borealis but a phenomena newly characterised by the science community. The raw shot and associated time lapse was the basis of a physics paper I coauthored called The Vertical Distribution of the Optical Emissions of a Steve and Picket Fence Event.

The paper advanced our understanding of these phenomena by narrowing down the altitude extent of the Steve and picket fence emissions. This shot was taken while looking south in the northern hemisphere. The research was partially funded by the European Space Agency. You can find a link to the ESA summary of the paper here https://eo4society.esa.int/2019/10/11/the-vertical-distribution-of-the-optical-emissions-of-a-steve-and-picket-fence-event/.

Taken while camping at 1,646m (5,400 ft) as part of a multi-day back country hike. Mt Robson rises 2,308m (7,572ft) out of the lake to a height of 3,954 m (12,972 ft). The highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Available on the fully decentralised platform Tux.art at https://tux.art/#/nft/0x4b153bC83baE5FF5611404b90A1fF3C8DEB36Bb9/3

A few images below; the first being the journal cover page.

European Space Agency Website

NASA Website

Maping image from the paper

Summary info

If you would like to learn a little bit more about my background in photography you can read the interview @photofeed did with me here.

Robert Downie
Love Life, Love Photography