May 11, 2024

The Northern Lights, seen from the south shore of Lake Mendota at 4 a.m. last night.

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That's how they were seen by my iPhone camera, of course. Seen with the naked eye, the lights were much subtler. You had to be there.

32 comments:

rcpjr said...

https://drive.proton.me/urls/B3QE64CCG0#di2ZRZQPBls7

This is what they looked like from the Eastern shore of Conesus Lake in New York. I could only see white streaks that looked a bit like searchlights. The camera captured the colors.

Saint Croix said...

wow

super cool

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Nice. Thanks for going out there.

EAB said...

We had a lot of cloud cover last night north of you, so I didn’t bother to go out. I might tonight.

Breezy said...

Gorgeous photos! We had clouds here last night, but will go out tonight to try and capture.

MadisonMan said...

I peeked out my window at 2AM and looked at the sky. Looked pretty much like it always does.

rhhardin said...

I didn't see any in Central Ohio at 10, 11, midnight, 1 or 2. It wasn't totally dark like it was in the 90s when I saw some though. Too many lighted warehouses and data centers have expanded a bit into rural areas, so there only a few stars visible.

Narr said...

How did the Aurora Borealis know it is my three score and eleventieth birthday?

Original Mike said...

I saw them from my house, past the zenith and extending another 20 degrees to the south. Madison's light pollution really washed them out, of course, but they could be seen.

chuck said...

It used to take high end equipment and skill to successfully photograph aurora, now it is taken for granted.

Original Mike said...

I should add that my observation was made about midnight.

Original Mike said...

"I peeked out my window at 2AM and looked at the sky. Looked pretty much like it always does."

I couldn't see them through the window either. You have to go outside and let your eyes dark adapt a bit. But the light pollution really takes its toll.

Ann Althouse said...

"It used to take high end equipment and skill to successfully photograph aurora, now it is taken for granted."

There was a guy there at the same time who had elaborate equipment and he admitted what I was getting was much better.

Saint Croix said...

It occurred to me that Bobby Kennedy Jr. released the "worm ate my brain" news because he's trying to stay in the public eye.

I guess P.T. Barnum is his campaign manager.

"There's no such thing as bad publicity."

mccullough said...

The Auroras of Spring

JAORE said...

We have traveled to Alaska, Norway, and Northern Scotland. All during Northern Light season. The Norway trip was specifically a NL cruise.

We saw a pale green glow filtered through high clouds.

Bummer.

But now the lights ave been seen in Alabama!

We pan to drive north to near Tennessee tonight in an attempt to get a better view.

victoria said...

Amazing!!!

Vicki from Pasadena

FullMoon said...

"chuck said...

It used to take high end equipment and skill "

Subtle inference.

JK

Assistant Village Idiot said...

The Aurora is visible from time to time here, but it is hard for us to see them, as we are on the south side of hills and this is forested area. My sons in Tromso and Nome see them all the time, and we are tempted to visit in February ( a generally insane idea) in order to have a shot at that. We will be in Ireland the next two weeks, with northern views, but cloudiness is a perennial problem there.

Mike near Seattle said...

We had a similar, perhaps slightly more vivid, experience in Washington state, on the outer edge of Seattle's suburbs. Curtains and swirls of light filling the northern sky. In 3-second iPhone photos, they were magenta at the top, green at the bottom, but to the naked eye, they were shades of gray, much more subtle.

Ann Althouse said...

“It occurred to me that Bobby Kennedy Jr. released the "worm ate my brain" news because he's trying to stay in the public eye.”

But he didn’t release it. The New York Times found it in a transcript from 2012.

Narr said...

One of my wife's nieces informed her that it's all a USG experiment from a facility in Alaska.
Ouch.


Sprezzatura said...

"We had a similar, perhaps slightly more vivid, experience in Washington state, on the outer edge of Seattle's suburbs. Curtains and swirls of light filling the northern sky."

Not too far from there, it was really amazing on Dabob Bay.

Also, I heard from a neighbor (and she showed me a picture) re my Seattle house that it was pretty good over by Green Lake but only for a short time.

Usually we need to go to Alaska for this.

rhhardin said...

The Aurora forecast doesn't at the moment look promising (refreshes to change though). Last night the green extended past southern Ohio. Check again when the dark approaches you.

traditionalguy said...

The Trump has a new theme song on his rallies: JAIL HOUSE ROCK. Borrowed from one King by another.

Narayanan said...

is the view better from higher up balloon riding?

Achilles said...

The PBD podcast goes over the highlights of the Brady Roast.

Tony Hinchcliffe is a savage.

Cuomo is a good addition to their lineup.

traditionalguy said...

Trump’s speeches today at Waukesha and the Jersey Shore were the strongest ever seen. The wife who doesn’t admire the Orange Man’s personality ask me to remind her to get a mail in ballot for her. She is determined to get Trump back to save the USA for her grandchildren. One of them was sworn in as an Army second lieutenant this afternoon. Now it matters.

Amadeus 48 said...

If this doesn't lead to an immediate hardening of the electric grid in the USA and around the world, we are suicidal. At a reasonable cost, we can be prepared to deal with a catastrophe, whether a natural event or an EMP attack. This would not be about electric generation. This would be about electric transmission.

Read about the Carrington event in in 1859. Today, that would throw us back into the pre-electric age in an afternoon. No power. No light. No transportation. No food. No water. No way to fix it.

Hey Skipper said...

Ten or so years ago I was flying from Seattle to Anchorage. At around 1 AM we started seeing the Aurora, and flew under it a couple hours later. Perfectly clear, and dark. We were close enough we could see relative movement against the stars. (Okay, at 36,000', we were probably still at least 70 miles below it, but still.)

The plasma moving through the magnetic field was clearly visible. Like a waterfall going the wrong direction, and spiraling along the way.

Hey Skipper said...

Ten or so years ago I was flying from Seattle to Anchorage. At around 1 AM we started seeing the Aurora, and flew under it a couple hours later. Perfectly clear, and dark. We were close enough we could see relative movement against the stars. (Okay, at 36,000', we were probably still at least 70 miles below it, but still.)

The plasma moving through the magnetic field was clearly visible. Like a waterfall going the wrong direction, and spiraling along the way.

lonejustice said...

I know some people who used their iPhone to take pictures of the Aurora, even though they could not see the Aurora with their own eyes. That's how advanced the camera is on an iPhone. So now they have pictures of the Aurora that they never saw. How weird is that?