WOW! There were some awesome surprise northern lights last night! Spaceweather.com said: "Arriving a little earlier than expected, a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) hit Earth's magnetic field on October 2nd at approximately 0200 UT. The impact sparked a G2-class geomagnetic storm with auroras across Canada and several northern-tier states."
Jessica and I had just finished watching a movie and were about to start getting ready for bed. Jessica was looking at Facebook when she noticed there were some posts about the northern lights being out. So, we looked at the Aurora Soft Serve News site and sure enough, they were indicating the aurora was at STORM level! I had been super-tired just moments before, but I was quickly wide awake again after walking out onto our deck and seeing a large, glowing arc of aurora over Mt. Josephine in our backyard. Of course what happened next should be obvious. I gathered my gear and hopped in the truck, heading inland to photograph the lights. I spent the next 4 hours watching probably the best aurora storm to occur yet this year. The photo you see here was the very first exposure I made of the lights. After this I made about another 180 images of the dancing lights before heading back home for the night.
1 comment:
Wow, those are great shots! My fiancee and I saw it as well, though it only filled about half the sky, oscillating between red and green, stretching from the Pleiades to the western horizon over Lac qui Parle. I kept saying: "I wish we were up north right now." I've never seen it so bright this far south before. Had no idea it was such a big CME. Keep up the good work. We'll try to make it up for a visit sometime before it snows.
Jason (your cousin)
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