"Wow!" exclaims Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway. "Tonight Earth's upper atmosphere got hit full force both by the solar wind, producing some amazing coronas in purple and green, and every now and then by a fragment from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the Quadrantid meteor shower." He took this picture using his Nikon D3:

Aurora and Meteor
© Fredrik Broms
"Bitter cold weather here in northern Norway made the photo-session a bit shorter than I hoped--indeed, my lens was completely covered in ice crystals--but I managed to catch some of the beauty of this cold night," says Broms.

Browse the links below for more snapshots of the first auroras and the first meteor shower of the New Year.

More Images:
From Cesar Cantu of Monterrey, México; from Ørjan Bertelsen of Birtavarre, Kåfjorden, Norway; from Frank Martin Ingilæ of Tana bru, Finnmark, Norway; from Therese van Nieuwenhoven of Laukvik, Lofoten, Norway; from Thomas Achermann of Törmäslompolo, Lapland, Finland; from Yuichi Takasaka of Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada; from James Beauchamp of Oklahoma City, OK