[meteorite-list] Aurora Borealis Alert!!

From: Ginger Mayfield <chikadee_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:44:44 2004
Message-ID: <3AC62113.5199B9F4_at_earthlink.net>

Steve,

Very happy to hear that you were able to see it. I have
seen several auroras before but nothing to compare with last
night!! There were several of us in our local astronomy
club who were on our list talking back and forth about the
possibility and monitoring the indices for the proton hit on
the NOAA site.

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html

I had mostly cloudy skies and had just gone out to check
things out and noticed that the clouds were clearing but
leaving behind a kind of weird fog. Keep in mind that I'm
on top of a mountain range in Colorado at 9400 ft. I went
back in and was about to send a note to our club list that I
didn't see anything but decided to go back out and check
again. I stepped out on my deck and the sky was a deep red
to the north, the east, the west and directly overhead.
Looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie!! The snow on the
ground was glowing the most unreal color of red I've ever
seen. I ran in and sent a message and went back out again.
The Moon was setting in the west behind this red misty
curtain. Gradually the red areas became less intense and it
clouded up and snowed for about 10 minutes. I almost went
to sleep then but sure enough the snow ended and it began to
clear again and there was a green/grey curtain to the north
covering most of the northern sky up to about 45 degrees,
with spires moving up and down. This glowing curtain
remained until I finally gave it up about 0330 MST. Some of
my friends down in town went out east and got some nice pics
although they didn't see much of the red part. It's a shame
that it was cloudy just a few miles to the north in Denver
and Boulder. I'm hoping for a repeat tonight but I doubt
I'll ever see any aurora as beautiful as last night. That
was a once in a lifetime experience. It was seen in many
places where the skies were clear, as far south as LA and
Tucson. By the way, the sunspot that set off the aurora is
huge and quite dramatic with magnification and a solar
filter. I just took some pics will try to post them
somewhere and give a link later on.

Ginger

meteorites_at_space.com wrote:
________________________________________
> >
> After reading this post I went outside to meet my wife and daughter returning from a friend's house. I told them that we had to go from Flagstaff's bright lights (not so bright) as there was an intense auroral display going on.
>
> My daughter said "See, I told you mom, that something strange was going on in the sky. And she pointed up, almost directly overhead at a pearly green streamer, the sight of which I could plainly see. I was thrilled as I had always wanted to see an aurora, so we got into the car and went out of town. Immediately I saw that the San Francisco Peaks were outlined against a pearly blue green light. It was tremendous. We found a not to dark place, as it seemed everyone was out and about on that country road with their brights on. But even then we could see the glow. And there to the west was the most spectacular red glow I had ever seen, and streamers came and went in short order.
>
> It was really something. And it must have been great for my daughter and wife as their night vision is much better than mine.
>
> It was cold last night, and they wanted to go back home. After I dropped them off, I went to the dark skies of the Naval Observatory outside of town, and by the time I got there it was really spectacular. The SF Peaks were still clearly backlit with a greenish blue glow, and now the streamers projected almost a third the way up into the sky. The red glow was broad, and almost due west, and there was a bluish glow to the east. Then as a finale, a ray extended up from the east side of the peaks, and broadened into a whitish green curtain which in a matter of less than a minute turned into a red one with bright whitish green streamers extending up into the sky.
>
> It was tremendous, and fulfillment of a wish that I would someday see such a sight (It does not happen very often here in Flagstaff, and the last time was in 1977, and I missed it)
>
> If http://www.spacew.com; and http://www.spaceweather.com predict the same for tonight GO OUT TO DARK SKIES AND WATCH !
>
> It is well worth it.
>
> Steve Schoner
> http://www.geocities.com/american_meteorite_survey
>
> ___________________________________________________________________
> Join the Space Program: Get FREE E-mail at http://www.space.com.
Received on Sat 31 Mar 2001 01:25:23 PM PST