Aurora Borealis.. GOING OFF BIG!

“http://www.spaceweather.com
Possibly visible as far south as CA, AZ, TX on the night of the 14th and 15th!

A photo of it was submitted to spaceweather and was taken from AZ on the 11th or so!
last edited: 9/14/05 3:27:18 AM”

“Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep an eye peeled, and a camera handy.”

“On Saturday night, the 10th, my dad called me at 11 p.m. to tell me about how spectacular they were. He lives about 45 minutes SE of Fargo, ND. Typically they appear in the NW sky. That night they were north of him as usual, but they spread all the way to the southern sky, almost encircling him. He called me to tell me to go outside and see if I could see them from here in NW Indiana. Unfortunately the light pollution made it such that I could not.”

“So how come every time theres something really great to look at in the sky around here ,it clouds up and rains???!! It hasnt rained in weeks ,until this morning that is!!SHEESH!!”

“clear skies here in northern illinois I will have to go out and take a look”

“Awesome last time I've seen the northen lights once before here in Iowa”

“Nothing but the moon lighting up the entire sky here :( -- any particular time of night to be looking?”

“The Aurora was a bust here in Northern Utah. Nothing but the stars.”

“The web site referred to above says that the CME impact occurred at 2 a.m. PST. I wonder how that translates into best aurora viewing times. Was anyone out there looking at the sky early this morning? That would have been 4 a.m. for the midwest.”

“I just happened to wake up at about 4AM, looked out the window and saw nothing.

But, I like to listen to distant AM radio stations and last night was really interesting with the solar radiation.

Stations from the South were coming in really clear. From Michigan, I picked up WWL 870 out of New Orleans, WSB 750 out of Atlanta and several stations across Tennesse and Kentucky. They were as clear as they ever come in - like they were broadcasting from Detroit.

The Northern stations sounded like they were being intentionally blocked. WCCO 830 out of Minneapolis and WBZ 1030 out of Boston sounded like TV stations being blocked by the cable company. Both are normally very clear in Michigan.

Also, local low power stations came in very clear. They are normally inaudible because of long-range interference.

The only thing that I can figure is that the solar radiation was limited to the northern tier of the US like Minnesota and Massachusetts. This radiation blocked the radio signals from these places, allowing Southern stations and local stations to come in more clearly.

There were several other weird things. 1120 out of St. Louis went back and forth between being very clear and being "jammed" like the Northern stations. Perhaps the aurora went as far south as Missouri?

One final observation. Several stations had a very unique hum, kind of like a theramone. The tone would change from moment to moment, but it was kind of like the wavy background tone in a bad ghost movie or Scooby Doo. Am I incorrect to think that I am listening to the Northern Lights at that point?”

“WEAK IMPACT: A mild geomagnetic storm is underway. It was triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME) on Earth's magnetic field this morning. Many people were hoping for a bright display of auroras when the CME arrived, but the auroras failed to materialize--except briefly in Alaska:”

“I was hoping for a display and went outside to look at 10. We don't get them often in MD, so big explosions get my excitement level up.

Nice bright moon, though.”

“from spaceweather.com

"AURORA WATCH: High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras tonight. A fast solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, causing mild to moderate geomagnetic storms. This comes in the wake of a CME that swept past Earth this morning. At first the CME did little to spark auroras, but now the storm is intensifying, raising hopes for a display tonight."”