the northern lights, oh the wide eyed amazement

I pulled off onto an empty exit ramp, got out of the car, and just stood there in awe, watching the lights shimmer.

My advice, go to Alaska. Also, don't go to Alaska because except for camping and hunting and fishing and stuff like that, it's a shitty place to be. Anchorage is like a small hick town, only you can't drive a couple hours to a big city, because the closest decent size city is about 1200 miles away.

There's good weed, though.

"The Stenching Time"

So pretty....

"The Northern Lights of Auld Aberdeen
They're home, sweet home tae me"

hey! maybe tonight!

An event on the Sun occurred on the 7th of June. Prompt arrival of high speed particles has already affected the atmosphere. Our model indicates that the shock wave will reach Earth on the 8th of June around 5pm GMT. This will be followed by a disturbance in the solar wind that should produce fairly extensive auroral displays within 24 hr after that time…

It is difficult to predict what the K index will be during night of the 8th in North America, but it is reasonable to expect K=6 which would put the aurora over Milwaukee, and visible on the northern horizon on a line from Portland Ore, southern Nebraska, southern Indiana, to Washington, DC.

Most of Alaska actually isn't that good for northern lights- it's a little too far west. The best northern lights I ever saw were in Michigan, which is about the same longitude as the magnetic pole.

I saw them (well, that red shimmeriness mentioned upthread) once when I lived in Colorado (~45 degrees North).

Waitaminute...no, 40 North. South Minnesota is at 45 North.

One of my goals in life is to go somewhere where you can really see them. There's somewhere in Canada where you can see both them and polar bears. I want to go there.

well, i called my gf's mom and got her out of bed at 9:45. hopefully northfield is far enough north.

she just called back to remind me midnight pst is 2 am central time, not 10 pm. color me embarrassed.

p. incredible ones last night near my hometown (not my pics)

http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/s720x720/294745_290369927653517_165862740104237_1076726_1381792301_n.jpg
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/317825_290370000986843_165862740104237_1076730_731858680_n.jpg
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/302056_290370044320172_165862740104237_1076732_24278717_n.jpg

story w/ video: http://www.detnews.com/article/20111025/METRO/110250393/Sky-watchers-in-awe-of-vivid-northern-lights-display-over-much-of-Michigan

Oh my God, wow!!!

So beautiful.

There were reports that you could see them as far south as NW Arkansas. That's crazy.

Dan!!!! Someone in my fb feed posted photos like those, too! Amazing.

One of my goals in life is to go somewhere where you can really see them. There's somewhere in Canada where you can see both them and polar bears. I want to go there.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 10:26 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

This is still true. I pretty much only have two things currently on my not actually official or even really thought about before this very moment life to do list that are constants. This is one of them. The other is to go to Borneo and volunteer at an Orangutan sanctuary and hold a baby orangutan while do so.

Oh and I said this earlier on ZS's facebook when he posted about northern lights (coincidentally?) but, I had the most vivid and beautiful dream last week about seeing the northern lights. It was so awesome that I was sad to wake up.

xxp. I think you're looking for Thompson, Manitoba.

In 2001 I saw the aurora borealis in southeastern Idaho. I had remembered in elementary school one of my friends showing me a slide her father had made of a pic he took of the northern lights in 1982. I thought like what a crazy wish come true it could be if I saw them, and I did, right before I moved away. The sky was full of these rich, robust streaks of teal and turquoise and blood red, moving toward this funny dimple in the middle of the sky that looked like a bellybutton. My boyfriend and I had parked my van on this weird off street that was only used by the construction company that built it, way out in the country, so we could just roll around and make out. So we'd done that for a couple of hours and we got out of the van to stretch and the Northern Lights were illuminating everything I saw. I dropped him off and woke up my younger brothers and sisters and parents to say this insanely rare and sublime phenomenon was happening, take a look. But they all wanted to sleep. I stayed up for another hour or so just laying on our front lawn scoping it out. My family lived way the fuck in the middle of nowhere, which was normally quite a pain. It was lucky that night though because it meant an abnormally lucid view of the shifting colors in the sky. I called my friends in Boise the next day and they didn't get to see it because of light pollution.

Anyway, it was amazing and gorgeous, and I feel incredibly lucky and humble to have seen it.

I used to see these all the time where I grew up, and now I live elsewhere and haven't seen them in forever. Took it for granted.

Abbott I am jealous. Sunds beautiful. Also that might be the place! I will investigate.

My parents went to borneo in the 80s... my dad got peed on by an orangutan haha.

LOL. I'd be ok with getting peed on as long as I got some ape cuddles too.

more upper michigan goodness

http://vimeo.com/45795234

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND1buD9ccfk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scUUJWWE34o&feature=relmfu

feels like cheating to post excerpts from this film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110831/

it's a documentary of an expedition to film the northern lights, strewn with interviews and long studies on the land as it changes as they travel. on good nights, their time-lapse cameras capture 30-90 seconds worth of footage. the closer they get, the brighter the lights, and the film ends with an unbelievable 8-10 minute stretch. music by jim o'rourke based on processed recordings of fred frith guitar solos. can't imagine this compares to the real thing, but it encouraged me to make this trip myself someday.

anyone taking a look tonight?

Too overcast here unfortunately. Is it clear enough where you are?

there was a fire alarm in my building tonight right around 8 o'clock, sun down, no red light in the sky, and looking across the river, i saw what looked like a curtain of steam. the north side of the river is all upgrader plants, so there's often odd plumes of steam or smoke, but i looked a bit longer and decided it was the northern lights. i drove to mac's and bought a tin and heard a radio thing about solar storms. around eleven, we drove fifty kilometers east. there's a dark sky preserve somewhere inside elk island. we were near there. the sky was clear, milky way strands visible, bright stars. but no northern lights. it was too late.

Went for a walk with a vague hope of seeing but couldn't quite bring myself to drive out to somewhere with less light pollution ... because I didn't really think I'd see anything in Oxford, UK.

The first person to talk about them on Radio 4 this morning was from Oxfordshire (he'd seen them).

Worth signing up to the University of Lancaster's Twitter alerts.

Oh I forgot to look.

(I believe) I saw them once in Oxfordshire in my thirtymumble years here but only as a hazy dark red sheen shifting across the sky: no bright colours. Was more visible from this far south last night?

That was in Far!ngdon, in the middle of town but less light pollution than Oxford itself; doubt I'd see much from here as I can barely see stars most nights.