What with encroaching light pollution, it’s been over a decade since I’ve seen them here at my home, at ~43.60 latitude North, still a bit closer to the equator than to the north pole. But my home is on Lake Michigan’s shore and we’ve got a bit of, well, NOT a ‘dark zone’ but a less light polluted zone, probably the darkest spot on SE Wisconsin’s shoreline.
And tonight is completely clear here, moonless and as a result voila, there it is! In all its glory! Not particularly colorful, but strong double bands of white light, slowly wavering, two band stretching well over 2/3 of the sky! Magnificent! I can even make out the band of the Milky way too, something not so rare as the aurora, but no longer normal for most clear nights around these parts.
The Mrs. and I sat on a bench on the beach, staring up for about 20 minutes, taking it all in. Then she got cold, so I kept watch for another 20 minutes. What a sight!
I do hope one day to see it in the far north, where it could be strong enough to see its varied hues and see even more bands/curtains of it. But I’m still pretty pumped up from the view I got from my own doorstep.
I’m at 41.8 degrees north, in suburban Chicago. It’s a clear, gorgeous night, but light pollution is pretty bad here, and one can normally only make out the brightest stars.
Due to the light pollution, and the relatively southern latitude, I don’t ever have high hopes of spotting an aurora here, and tonight is no exception. I just stood outside for about 10 minutes, letting my eyes adapt to the darkness, but there was no sign of the aurora.
FWIW, I have, once, seen the aurora from this area – and that was when we were living even closer to the city, and light pollution was likely at least as bad, if not worse. But, that was also 30 years ago.
In early 90s I once saw the aurora borealis shining down in Dallas. Can you picture that?
(well, it was in the farm country north of Dallas, out of its immediate light pollution, but close enough. )
Here’s a tweet from a year and a half ago, showing a beautiful display up at La Ronge, Sask. (Not taken by me, I hasten to add.)
I wouldn’t say it’s rare to see them here. More, “Oh look, there’s the northern lights.” My best viewing was one night when I was at a movie theatre and walked out the side exit after the movie. My eyes were used to the dark, and there was a beautiful pink display dancing in the skies.
Same as here, at 49+ degrees North. I used to live a little farther north, and would watch them from my front porch. They’re fun to watch, but they don’t appear as frequently as they would much farther north–I have a beautiful photo of them, taken in Yellowknife, where they are pretty common.
I do recall the night I was living a little ways north of Toronto (44 degrees North), and driving a country road home. It was a cloudless night, but being a country road, was not lit. There was something outside in the sky. I pulled over and shut off the headlights.
And there they were, in the sky of southern Ontario! Faint, but beautiful. So they can appear farther south than you might expect.
Same here. I live at 38.65N, so not likely to see it near home. We were in central/south-central Alaska in late May early June this year, but no show for us. The 21 hours of daylight probably didn’t help.
Very cool. I don’t think I would have been able to see the AB from my backyard last night-- too much light pollution, too many tall trees on the horizon.
I saw the AB only once, in Northern Michigan while camping, a long time ago.
A weather presenter has just said i might get to see them tonight (18th)…
I’m in the UK, 51.91 N - which appears to be more norther than many
here who have seen them - and i’ve never seen them.
Typical.
Too cloudy to see anything last night. If anything would tempt me to travel to the frigid desolate end of the earth it would be the chance to see the aurora.
44 degrees north, so seeing them is not unusual. The 10 o’clock news hyped it up as a miracle, and urged everyone to go outside. They forgot to mention that we had thick cloud cover all night (and tonight too); the weatherman was too lazy to actually go outside. I’ve seen some pretty spectacular displays here, but none since 2014.
My best spotting was in Platteville, WI which is south of my current location. I forgot to look last night, but my yard has nontrivial light pollution. I can get to a much darker spot with a 5 min drive (I did that for a recent comet)
Well, they were not visible to me last night despite a clear sky. I’m grateful I saw them the night before.
With retirement upon us, the Mrs. and I agree we want to do some extended road trips to points north where we’ll be able to have a chance to see the lights in their greater glory sometime.
)