May 26, 2025 Airglow Ripples

THE SKY cleared up after midnight and it was very pleasant with the Milky Way rising over head. I saw flashes of lighting from a thunderstorm complex to the south. See the screenshot below showing NOAA-GOES satellite imagery from just before 3 am local time (9:00 UTC). At around 3:30 am, I ran a timelapse sequence for about 30 minutes and picked up some watery-green airglow rippling across the sky. North is down in this image set, so the ripples were flowing from south to north, as if flowing out from above the storms to the south. The ripples were invisible to the unaided eye, though the sky looked somewhat bright, especially along the horizons. SQM readings were around 21.4, which is about 0.2 mpsas brighter than I would expect on a clear night at that time. Nikon D750 at 20 sec 6400 iso f2.8.