Solar Activity, Northern Lights

GehRehmee writes: "Just a few weeks after the sun's peak in its 11 year cycle, two large CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections) occured on the surface of the sun. Now, as the effects of those eruptions reach earth, we're experiencing an excellent season of aurora, or "Northern Lights". Fantastic red aurora are being reported as far south as central California, and amateur and professional astronomers as far south as 40 degrees latitude are on watch. SpaceWeather.com has all the breaking news, as well as details of the CME's which occurred earlier this week. Take a step outside, get some fresh air, and enjoy the sky. You might just be treated to a rare astronomical opportunity." Maybe people can post links to some of the prettier pictures for those of us (cough, cough) who live in light-polluted cities.

Comments

SpaceWeather's Aurora Gallery

[colindiz]

For those of you that just want the purdy pictures, have a look at:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_20mar01 .html - spaceweather's aurora borealis gallery of photos

Or alternatively just go direct to a few pictures found in the gallery:

• http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/images/20mar01/ eklund5.jpg - Tiedye style northern lights! \;)
• http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/images/20mar01/ zimmerman1.jpg - An imposing vibrant green light in the Alaskan skies
• http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/images/20mar01/ curtis1.jpg - A photo taken during a quick changing aurora borealis storm.

Enjoy! These things are really a lot more impressive in person, as they dance around the night sky. Picture those early Windows 3.1 screensavers superimposed into space and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about. (Please, stay seated, Bill Gates doesn't actually rule the universe, that was just a for-instance.)

Holy shit.

[loraksus]

I just went outside, in Tigard, Oregon.

Saw the lights, really neat.

Kinda sad that I had to be told this by a geek site :)

In any case, they aren't as impressive as they were in Alaska, I'd bet you it's really interesting up there right now.

Supposedly you can make a device that will "hear" ELF, or the part of the spectrum the lights are related to - as well as listening to the messages sent to US submarines.
(sounds really bad, I'm tired)

Its quite easy to make, as the frequencies are really low, and are about equal to the hearing range of the ear (but are in the EM spectrum as opposed to sound)

I'll post a link tomorow.

Being in an area with rolling blackouts would be cool right about now. . .

Well, gnight. . .
(falls asleep at keyboa ..........

I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.

Re:Holy shit.

[Master Bait]

I live nrth of Napa, California. I'm out in the cvountry and the skies were perfect. I saw them at arounf 10 last night. At the peak, about 120 degrees from horizon to horizon. A couple of green streaks made it all the way overhead.

My girlsfiend said they were very romantioc and later that night I experienced a coronal mass ejection.

blessings,

Re:Aurora Australis?

[Kotetsu]

This site includes satellite images of both north and south poles so you can see where the aurora is visible.

Some aurora pics

[magi]

These are pictures I took in Finland on 19th. They were published in spaceweather.com last week:

http://magi.yok.utu.fi/~magi/kuvia/series/display. cgi/aurora.ser?height=768

They were taken with Casio QV-3000EX/Ir digital camera. Unfortunately there's no serial or USB driver for Linux for the camera, so I have to boot to the damned winshit to download the pics (it's actually the only thing I use it for). It would be great if the USB storage driver guys or gPhoto guys would get a driver working at last.

The first panorama was made with the Casio Panorama program; it works under WINE just fine. Two panoramas were done with GIMP. Other pics were brightened with xv. The despecle filter of GIMP helps a little with noisy pictures, but perhaps not enough.

I chose Casio QV-3000 especially for its bright lens (F/2.0) and long exposure time (60s), which are important for astrophotography.

"hearing" the lights, links to pictures, etc..

[phrawzty]

When i was a kid, i lived in the Yukon. Watching the lights was a near nightly occurance. To this day i swear you could hear them. I've read all over the place that they're not supposed to have any sort of sound that a human could hear - but if you ask anybody who's lived with them, they'll all tell you that sometimes, if it's just right, you can hear 'em.

I live further south now (still in Canada -- Winnipeg, to be precise), and we can still see the lights at least once a week, in the winter (if you leave the city).

If you *really* want to fully experience the lights, there's only one place to go - Churchill, MB, Canada. Why Churchill, you ask? As it turns out, it's almost right under the most active Aurora Borealis area on earth. They get visable activity there over 200 nights a year (as i recall - it's been a few years since i've been up there). Various governments around the world have a joint atmospheric studies lab up there, and there's a rocket-launching pad too. Did i mention polar bears?

Oh, hey, some links would probably be cool.

• travel.excite's synopsis on Churchill
• Images from Churchill, including the lights.

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| big bad mr. frosty
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Light polluted?

[tswinzig]

Maybe people can post links to some of the prettier pictures for those of us (cough, cough) who live in light-polluted cities.

Sounds like you live in an air-polluted city as well.