Nice Aurora Sunday Night!

Sunday night and large bright aurora here in Central Michigan. Enjoy it if you can.

Clear skies,
Mark Hansen

Hi Mark,

I've been watching the lights for about an hour from my back yard here in south east Wisconsin. Being just 10 or so miles from Downtown Milwaukee the sky isn't to dark, but this aurora is displaying real well. Large green band crossing the sky 40 to 60 degrees from the northern horizon and is glowing fairly bright.

I am going to go out back and watch it for awhile, hope it lights up a little more.

Paul B..

Really, really wonderful show, visible from suburban Minneapolis
area. There was a lot of 'action' about 30 degrees above the
horizon about 6:30 PM CST here, with glowing rope and loop-like
structures.. now if I could just switch off the street lights
in the neighborhood...

bill

I saw the aurora at about 6:30 this evening here in St. Paul MN and then it seemed to have stopped. Went back outside just before 9 PM and nearly the whole sky was green with it. Unbelievable! While I was admiring the show, I was treated to a small fireball, showering sparks for about 3-5 seconds traveling west to east.

What a night!

Don

I discussed this in work tonight with someone. Several pilots on the frequency had remarked about how impressive the aurora were tonight ( im an air traffic controller on long island). I remarked that i didnt think we'd be able to see them due to the skyglow problem here, in fact i had never seen them at all before in this area. Well lo and behold i looked out the window of the car while driving home and i thought DAMN. they were spread all the way across the northern sky with rays a bit beyond the zenith. Very excited i sped home well above the speed limit, ran in to get my binocs, and called my sister to tell her about it. I zipped down to the beach (about a half mile north of my house on long island sound). By the time I got there clouds had rolled in across the whole northern horizon to 2/3 of zenith and i couldn't see a damn thing. Crestfallen, I returned home, by the time i got back the clouds had passed the zenith and half the sky ( the wrong half!) was obscured. Oh well.

Excellent aurora in Seattle, emanating at zenith and branching out in all directions. It was a nice surprise after coming home from the Sonics game.

5am and the aurora is still going strong. What a display the entire night! I can't believe it was actually clear most of the night here in Central Michigan for us to see the show.

Clear skies,
Mark Hansen

I certainly did enjoy it. Here's my report:

I first beheld Sunday night's spectacular display of the aurora borealis shortly after 8:00 pm EST (01:00 UT, 2004/11/8) from northern Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Rays, sheets, and curtains were visible in the north and northwest but local light pollution diminished their impact somewhat.

A second and more intense wave of auroral activity commenced around 11:15 pm EST (04:15 UT) and continued for more than an hour. By that time I had traveled to the ASH Naylor Observatory, which is near Lewisberry. When the celestial fireworks subsided I began observing with the ASH 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain, spending time on binary stars, open clusters, emission and planetary nebulae, and Saturn.

At about 2:45 am EST (07:45 UT) on Monday morning a third auroral display began. This was the most spectacular of the three periods that I witnessed. At least six rays stretched from the horizon to near the zenith from the north through the northwest. The most prominent ray was in the northwest and extended upwards to Perseus. These may have been the brightest auroral rays that I've ever seen. As far as color was concerned, I saw white and muted green and red hues.

Dave Mitsky

When my son was nine or ten, I got him out of bed during the wee hours to see an aurora display (a rarity here in central Ky.). Last night, (about 15 years later) he returned the favor. We watched it for about half an hour. Wonderful.

Steve O.