Sunday, October 06, 2013

Aurora Borealis Over Central Illinois

On the Wednesday into Thursday overnight of last week, a powerful CME (coronal mass ejection) emitted from the sun plowed into the atmosphere generating an intense display of Northern Lights even at low latitudes. Despite missing the impressive pre-midnight substorm, I still caught aurora glow and a separate smaller burst from around 2:30 AM. As has been typical with my luck when it comes to these events, condensation, cloud and eventual fog impeded my overall success. It was however the first time since before 2000 that I was able to view pillars with the naked eye.

Don't see readings like this too often.




True UFO in the sense that whatever is creating the erratic path/orbit only appears in this frame as I was shooting continuous for time lapse video found at bottom.


What I saw...


What I thought.






1 comment:

Jessica said...

Well, Paul, your nightowl ways have paid off again. Lovely. I had no idea we could get borealis this far south.