Posted on July 17, 2000

• Back when I was in college I took a road trip to northern Minnesota for a “hiking class”. On the way up I caught a display of the Northern Lights. I didn’t know what it was at first. The sky was glowing green and shimmering. It was one of the most incredible things I had ever seen.

  I heard that over the weekend you could see the Northern Lights as far south as Denver (can anyone confirm this?). I really wanted to see the aurora, but unfortunately I live too far south.

  My point? I spent all of last week tweaking “Relics”, trying lots of different stuff. None of the images really struck me as a major improvement though, so I kept at it. Last Friday I heard about the impending electronmagnetic storm and to assuage my disappointment as missing the Northern Lights I decided it would be cool if I added them to the image I was working on. The result, at long last, is entitled “Song of the Sky” and can be found on the New Images page and in the Night Scenery Gallery. The image turned out almost exactly like what I saw that night in Minnesota seven years ago. What do you think?

  I’ve also posted what this image looked like last week before I decided to add the aurora. You’ll find it in the Picklejar.

• If anyone is interested, the folks at Animatek have posted some of the new features they are working on for World Builder 3.0. It’s interesting in that it not only details what is to come (I’m drooling), but it also highlights some of the current version’s shortcomings. I may have to pick up a copy of Max. . .