Northern Lights Tonight! (Aurora Borealis)

[helicon]

This evening the Northern Lights are supposed to be spectacular. My mom even called me and told me to look for them (here at 38 degrees north unlikely) but they were supposed to be visible even as "south" as Chicago...

https://www.livescience.com/watch-north ... -2020.html

[messier 111]

thx for the tip .

[Thefatkitty]

Hi Michael, supposedly AR2790 threw out a CME the other day and it "glanced" off Earth. Still, it might make for the Northern Lights to show up in your location...

Curious to hear if that happens for you!

All the best,

[helicon]

I'll be checking this evening Mark. Don't expect much, but who knows???

[Chich]

I lived up north for a long time. Saw the Northern lights quite often. Always nice to see but I can tell you we had several observing nights cut short because all you could see was a green haze.

There is a Dark Sky festival put on by the local astro club (TAWBAS) and Wood Buffalo National Park in Fort Smith at the end of August. One of our guest speakers one year had never seen the lights and on one night they were horizon to horizon. The brighter and better they got the louder she was whooping and hollering

You can look in on Astronomy North who have a live sky camera in Yellowknife each evening.
https://astronomynorth.com/

[messier 111]

I have an app for that and where I live the chances are zero, unfortunately .

[KingNothing13]

The original prediction had them coming down as far as me in Mass - but I guess after they analyzed the particles, they rescinded that.

Which is fine with me - I wouldn't have been able to see it anyway - we are currently wall-to-wall clouds.

[helicon]

I went out at 9pm and even though it was clear, nothing unusual was visible. But I hope some of you other folks had success.

[Arctic]

No aurora up here toward the Canadian Border either...

[pakarinen]

This evening the Northern Lights are supposed to be spectacular. My mom even called me and told me to look for them (here at 38 degrees north unlikely) but they were supposed to be visible even as "south" as Chicago...

Which is currently socked in with 100% overcast and not likely to clear for a couple of days.

But of course...

[JayTee]

We didn't see it because the "cracks" got healed! The following, from Space Weather.com is something I had no clue about.

Why didn't the CME cause a storm? Every CME brings with it some magnetic field from the sun. If that magnetic field points south, it opens cracks in Earth's magnetic field, allowing solar wind to flow inside and fuel auroras. On the other hand, if the CME's magnetic field points north, it seals cracks in Earth's magnetic field, blocking the solar wind and quenching storms.

This CME brought a storm-killing north magnetic field. So, even though the velocity of the solar wind in the CME's wake flirted with a high value of 600 km/s, it was ineffective in causing geomagnetic storms and auroras.

And there you have it. This is pretty much crack-tastic!

JT