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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - On his flight into Yellowknife, the Canadian Space Agency's communication director witnessed the tourism power of Yellowknife's sky first-hand.

"The plane was just loaded up with Japanese tourists," said Paul Engel. "They were so excited."

University of Calgary space physicist Eric Donovan shows off a camera similar to the one which will be installed at a station in Yellowknife as part of AuroraMax. The camera will point upward, inside a glass dome, capturing the Northern sky through its fish-eye lens. - Lauren McKeon/NNSL photo

Engel was at Yellowknife's city hall Wednesday to announce "AuroraMax," a collaboration between the city, Astronomy North, the University of Calgary and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to broadcast live aurora viewings online.

The online shows are made possible by a small, colour camera valued at about $10,000, which will be installed in a mobile station - examples shown resembled a silo - with its fish-eye lens pointed skyward.

Ideally, the online observatory will engage students of all ages in learning more about the science of Northern lights and encourage tourists across the world to visit Yellowknife by showing them the wonder of the aurora.

As James Pugsley, Astronomy North president, puts it, it's impossible to describe to someone on the phone what the aurora looks like. You can explain it to them as dancing, for example, he said, but it still falls short.

The project "will allow people to connect with the sky," said Pugsley.

University of Calgary space physicist Eric Donovan said it has yet to be decided where the actual camera will be installed. Pugsley said the project should launch in either late August or early September, with five-year costs totalling $70,000.

There are currently more than a dozen black-and-white versions of the cameras installed around the world, and three or four others in Canada, notably in Fort Smith, Fort Simpson and Rabbit Lake, Sask.

But those, said Donovan, "are run entirely for scientific reasons." Yellowknife's will be the first broadcasting images for the public.

Images "will probably be on computers around the world. People will be interested in this," he said.

And Donovan will be interested in what people will have to say. He's hoping students looking at the images - from grade school to post-secondary - will make new observations and discoveries, big and small.

Donovan said the images being collected from cameras set on the aurora have gone from 200,000 in a year - which took a summer student months to catalogue and identify - to more than a trillion images annually.

"It would take 20,000 years to look through all the data," he said.

In addition to bringing the aurora to Canadian classrooms and potential tourists, Mayor Gord Van Tighem said he hopes AuroraMax will bring Northern lights viewing to Yellowknifers who haven't taken advantage of the nightly show.

"For some of us our bed time is 8 o'clock. This is a good way to see it if mommy won't let us stay up," he said.