Northern lights tonight

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I signed up for the Astro Alert newsletter (after hearing about it from a Doper) – and today’s alert (which was pretty damn scary to this non-scientific person) talked about this huge solar event going on as we speak!

Anyway, after I plowed through the frightening stuff about wrecked satellite communications and power failures, I got to the good stuff. Which is that tonight should be good for auroral activity for those of us who live in Canada and the northern tier of the U.S.

The alert included a link to a map showing where viewing will be the best:
http://spacew.com/www/aurora.html

Apparently the solar activity going on now is the highest in the current solar cycle. A solar cycle averages 11 years in duration.

So, if this sunstorm doesn’t fry us all in our beds tonight, you can thank me in the morning. Or not. :slight_smile:

Don’t bring beer to your job interview.
– Sig courtesy of ** WallyM7** (But maybe we can go to your car later?)

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There’s also the NOAA’s estimate of the auroral oval at http://www.sel.noaa.gov/pmap/pmapN.html.

Looks like there’s a small chance of seeing it near Chicago, but it’s getting cloudy, darn it! We may get snow tomorrow night!

…this is another Moebius sig…b!s sn!qaoW jay+oue s! s!y+…
(adaptation of a WallyM7Sig™ a la quadell)

For business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity. - Mark Twain