Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight (4 Aug, 2010)

PhotonWrangler · Aug 3, 2010

The sun has tossed a giant electromagnetic burst of energy towards the earth and it's due to arrive her in waves between tonight and tomorrow night. This will likely cause the aurora borealis to become visible in lower latitudes than normal.

I'm going to be up tonight anyway so I'm going to head outside after midnight and look towards the north. I have never seen the northern lights in person before so this will be quite a treat for me if they're visible here.

Anyone else up for this tonight? :popcorn:

Burgess · Aug 3, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

You've never SEEN 'em before ? ? ?

Wow ! You are gonna' be in for quite a treat !

(if it's not Cloudy for you, like it is for us in Indiana)

:awman:

I'm 57, and i've seen this perhaps 5 times.

Never, ever had any Advanced "heads-up" about it.

Isn't the Internet great ! ! !

:goodjob:

_

Colorblinded · Aug 3, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

I'm monitoring it, hoping to see something and find something worth shooting.

I'm checking this site and looking outside every now and then.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html

Black Rose · Aug 3, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

I was hoping we'd be able to see it tonight (haven't seen one since I was a teen) but it's cloudy and we are under a thunderstorm watch - could be a lightshow, but the not the one I wanted to see tonight.

Flying Turtle · Aug 3, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

I've never seen the "lights" before either. Don't expect to see them tonight, being so far south, but I'll take a peek anyway.

I'll also thank the atmosphere and magnetic field for saving our bacon.

Geoff

65535 · Aug 4, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

No chance I'll see them from here, Irvine, SoCal. If you could even see them, you wouldn't due to light pollution.

PhotonWrangler · Aug 4, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

Well I've been tracking the aurora on the excellent site that Colorblinded recommended (thanks!) and it hasn't quite dipped down far enough south for me to see anything outside. I checked the northern sky several times and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I will check again tomorrow night.

Didi anyone else see it?

DaFABRICATA · Aug 4, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

I keep going outside every hour here in lower eastern michigan and have not seen anything yet.
I live in the country so there is no light pollution at all.
Several years ago I saw the aurora borealis while living downtown with all sorts of light pollution!
I will be sure to get lots of pictures IF it makes it's appearance here.:wave:

StarHalo · Aug 4, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

65535 said:
No chance I'll see them from here, Irvine, SoCal. If you could even see them, you wouldn't due to light pollution.

Yup, not visible in the SoCal desert, where visibility is good enough to make out the galactic plane; looks like there's no need for another EMP thread

PhotonWrangler · Aug 4, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

Great. Thanks, DaFabricata! :popcorn:

Colorblinded · Aug 4, 2010

Re: Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight

PhotonWrangler said:
Well I've been tracking the aurora on the excellent site that Colorblinded recommended (thanks!) and it hasn't quite dipped down far enough south for me to see anything outside. I checked the northern sky several times and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I will check again tomorrow night.

Didi anyone else see it?

Didn't see a damn thing! It's hazy out but I can see stars if I look straight up. Not exactly what I'd want if the aurora did appear and I wanted to shoot it.

I don't know if this is supposed to continue through tomorrow night but I guess I'll be giving it another shot tomorrow if it is.

jellydonut · Aug 4, 2010

It's typical that this stuff happens when it's still bright outside.:thumbsdow

I may just be able to glimpse the one around midnight..:sigh:

fyrstormer · Aug 4, 2010

I've never seen a sunfart before. I should probably just drive to Canada and see it for real instead of hoping it reaches Virginia someday.

TedTheLed · Aug 4, 2010

too much fog here after midnight..

("sunfart" ? either you're belittling the power of el sol, or you have one terrible case of irritable bowel syndrome..!

)

Colorblinded · Aug 4, 2010

fyrstormer said:
I've never seen a sunfart before. I should probably just drive to Canada and see it for real instead of hoping it reaches Virginia someday.

Heading up that way to shoot it has been on my to-do list. I've seen it here before but it's usually very faint when it reaches this far south.

TONY M · Aug 4, 2010

It has unfortunately been cloudy as usual here.

I have only seen the aurora Borealis once before somewhere near Marathon Ontario in the summer time, and would love to see it again some time hopefully even more vividly.

Larbo · Aug 4, 2010

Maybe this solar max we will get a light show this far south, been a number of years from last time.

He is a few links I enjoy of this topic is of interest...cool stuff

http://spaceweather.com/

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Enjoy.

PhotonWrangler · Aug 4, 2010

TedTheLed said:
too much fog here after midnight..

("sunfart" ? either you're belittling the power of el sol, or you have one terrible case of irritable bowel syndrome..! )

How about Celestial Flatulence?

blasterman · Aug 6, 2010

I live in Michigan, and so far reports have been pretty weak about this one. Decent aurora events are typically visible from the city here.

Last decent northern lights display I've seen in MI was in the early 90's. The biggest I remember was in about 1980 when the northern lights were visible from the middle U.S. and were past zenith here in MI.

Burgess · Oct 25, 2011

* * * A T T E N T I O N * * *

Here's a CME event today, and i DID observe the Aurora Borealis tonight !

Here is my posting, in case yer' interested.

Hope some of you were able to see this !

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ited-States!&p=3778235&viewfull=1#post3778235

Here is some more info, from www.SpaceWeather.com

October 24, 2011 --

AURORAS IN THE USA: Northern Lights have spilled across the Canadian border into the contiguous USA. Sighting reports have come from as far south as Arkansas, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, , New York, Ohio and central California. The display was caused by the CME impact described below.
CME IMPACT: A CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Oct. 24th at approximately 1800 UT (02:00 pm EDT). According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the impact caused a strong compression of Earth's magnetic field, allowing solar wind to penetrate all the way down to geosynchronous orbit for a brief period between 19:06 UT and 19:11 UT. Earth-orbiting spacecraft could have been directly exposed to solar wind plasma during that time.The impact also sparked a geomagnetic storm, underway now. Geir Øye sends this picture from Ørsta, Norway:"These are the strongest and most beautiful auroras I've ever seen," says Øye, a veteran observer of Northern Lights. "I can only imagine what the display must have been further north."
:wow:

Coronal Mass Ejection may provide lightshow tonight (4 Aug, 2010)

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