Hi all.
Getting notices that a particularly strong aurora has been going on since early this morning. Been strong since and if it holds out for another 6 hours or so folks in America and Canada might have a nice show tonight.
Another plus for this one is not only the aurora a strong one, but the activity is much more southern than usual.
Might be able to post links later, but if you do some web searching I’m sure you can get some better info than this terse heads up.
Just thought I’d share.
I got up to pee about 1:30 AM this morning (3/17) and noticed out the window that the sky to the north was glowing brightly. Put on a coat and hat and stood outside for 20 minutes in the wind, with temps about 25F, bitter enough to make my eyes water. I saw several intense blue columns of light appear out of the blue background, some green spots, and a really vivid purple splotch that lasted about three minutes. It was a very nice show.
The Duluth (MN) paper has a good astronomy column that discussed it: Auroras paint the sky green and red. His column is also good for things to watch for in the sky in general (currently there’s a new nova!)
I’m currently about 70 miles north of Minneapolis where the sky is pretty dark.
I’ll try again tonight.
Skies are still just a bit light here, but I’m going out in a few minutes to look. For the time of year, the weather couldn’t be worse. It’s clearing, but the forecast is for 18 degrees with winds gusting up to 48mph. Not much chance of getting good photographs with that kind of wind shaking the tripod. Not to mention the “freezing your ass off” issue.
The UK had great aurora action last night, except where it was really thick cloud, like where I live.
Bah! Hope I have better luck with the eclipse on Friday morning…
Wow, that last photo by Sebastian Saarloos is amazing.
Auroras are one of the things I miss most about living in Alaska. Down south where we live now we may see one once a decade if we’re lucky. A very good friend quit an exceptional bright career to move out to the wilds and work solely as an aurora photographer. He may never get rich but he’s living his dream and loving life. We should all be so lucky.
We’re too far south and too close to the city lights to have seen it here in Sacramento. But one of these days I’m taking a trip north and I’m not coming back until I see the aurora…