Maybe it’s because I (like many) have experienced taking pictures at night and seeing the grainy result that _this_ image struck me as incredibly realistic.
Almost like I ran the grainy-to-real conversion in my mind and I felt like I was imagining seeing this in person. Beautiful image!
According to wikipedia the reversals can take a while
>Some sources estimate the most recent four reversals took on average 7,000 years to occur. Clement (2004) suggests that this duration is dependent on latitude, with shorter durations at low latitudes and longer durations at mid and high latitudes. Others estimate the duration of full reversals to vary from between 2,000 to 12,000 years.