Aurora 9/1/2019

 

   Predictions of auroral activity had been all over the local news since mid-week.  Friends and relatives had been asking me if I had heard of the pending Northern Lights display.  My reply dampened their expectations since the Kp index was only forecast to hit 5 or 6.  Besides that the timing of peak activity was supposed to occur when our local area was under cloudy skies. 

  Anyway I woke at 4:30 this morning and looked out to see that the sky had cleared.  So I checked my favorite website http://spaceweather.com/ to see what the geomagnetic conditions were.  They indicated a level of Kp 5 which doesn't make for a visually detectable display from my location but my camera can sometimes catch it anyway. So I packed the camera and the dog and headed toward the state park.

Slightly green on the horizon at level Kp 5

    The strength of the northern lights can vary quickly and they did. Fortunately intensity to probably Kp 6 and the display became barely visible to my eye but easily within the range of my camera.

Exposure - 30 seconds at f/3.5 and ISO 8000

Telephone pole and sand silo cropped out.

Milky Way over Lake Michigan

Morning Twilight Aurora 4/20/2018

  Earlier this week a coronal hole opened up on the Sun and allowed charged particles to stream toward Earth.  So even though the Sun was relatively inactive and devoid of sunspots a slight uptick in geomagnetic activity (to a Kp index of 4) was forecast for April 20.  When my ailing dog woke me at 5 AM a quick check of spaceweather.com   showed the index surged to 6, which put it within camera range at my latitude of nearly 44 North.

   I went to the end of the driveway and braced my camera against my mailbox and pointed it north for a two second exposure.  The photo below shows a purple glow through the trees.  At this point I knew I needed to get to a location with a clearer northern horizon fast because of the encroaching morning twilight.

     I quickly packed my camera gear and in seven minutes I was parked at a pull-off on M-116 where I took a quick photo with the camera held steady against the roof of my car.

   That method had my car's shark-fin antenna blocking the most intense part of the aurora.  I quickly searched through the car and found my tripod which allowed an unobstructed steadier view.

   The growing glow of dawn had me aiming more toward the northwest over Lake Michigan away from the eastern sky.  It appears that an atmospheric inversion was exposing the skyglow of cities across the lake in Wisconsin.

    In the photo above the two bright lights are from the freighter Roger Blough.

   The ship's ID was found on marinetraffic.com

  On a side note- last Friday our area experienced a seiche on the Lake Michigan shore.  News site Mlive reported this story........ ....http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2018/04/thunderstorm_induced_seiche_ca.html
   It kind of sells the event short because what they described was a 1 foot increase of lake level in an hour was not what was observed elsewhere.  At my worksite the lake level is constantly monitored and recorded.  Our data and surveillance video show that at 1243 EDT the lake had dropped to 573' above sea level from the normal level of 580.5'.  Four minutes later at 1247 EDT the lake surged to 588' above sea level, a change of 15'. At my former worksite on Lake Erie we had seiches of 10-15 feet almost yearly when strong southwest winds would set up across the whole fetch of the lake and push the water toward Buffalo, NY.  But the time elapsed between the high and low was typically 6-10 hours not 4 minutes.

Aurora Week

   Last night an uptick in geomagnetic activity resulted in a modest, moonlight hampered northern lights show.  I left for work early and set my camera up to run all night and immediately caught a couple of faint pillars of light.

Aurora Pillars

  Within the hour, as I went about my assigned tasks the intensity picked up to encompass the entire northern horizon.

     Last nights display neatly fits into the pattern of my previous aurora observations.   The first time that I saw the Northern Lights was coincidentally 26 years ago to the day on November 8, 1991. Over the years I've seen them 11 times from the state of Michigan.

 Here is a list of those dates.
November 8, 1991
November 5-6, 2001
October 29, 2003
November 20, 2003
November 7-8, 2004
November 10, 2004
March 17, 2015
November 4, 2015

September 29, 2016

September 28, 2017

And last night November 7-8, 2017.

  What jumps out from the list is that 73% of the sightings occurred over 6% of the calendar that spans from October 29 to November 23.  An even tighter window from November 4 to November 10 includes 55% of my observations in a 7 day period.  The Northern Lights are more likely to occur in the spring and fall rather than summer and winter for reasons explained in the link below.
NASA explanation 

    The most frequent cause of an auroral display is increased activity on the Sun that results in a coronal mass ejections that releases charged particles toward the Earth.  But as can be seen in the photo below, the spotless Solar disk indicates minimal activity, as we are currently heading toward the end of the current 11 year solar cycle.  

  The cause of last night's (as well as September 28th's) northern lights was a hole in the solar atmosphere that released a stream of Earth-directed charged particles.

   After the aurora died down my camera captured the International Space Station as it zipped across the northern sky at 6:20 AM.

Northern Lights 9/28/2017

  Although the Sun is quickly approaching the minimum activity portion of its 11 year cycle, it still can send streams of particles that interact with Earth's magnetic field.  Last night that interaction produced a respectable auroral display for the mid-latitude areas of the US.  The problem that I had to deal with was a persistent layer of low level clouds that didn't dissipate as promised.  Despite less than favorable conditions I set my camera up at work and let it take 6-second long exposures all night long.  The photo above was taken during the peak of the activity around 3:30 AM.

Northern Lights 9/29/16

   

 The sky cleared overnight just as an increase in auroral activity was to set to begin.  I drove out toward Ludington State Park at 9:30 and attempted to see and photograph the expected modest  display.  I stayed out there about an hour but the Kp index which had been predicted to be near 6 had decreased to 4 which made the lights out of reach for my location.

    At 5 AM I woke and saw that the skies were still cloudless, so per routine I loaded up the car and headed back out.  This time even though the aurora was not detectable with my eyes my camera did a fine job of picking up the color in the faint glow to the north.  Incidentally the Kp value was 5.3.

  Tonight the Kp is again expected to be near 6 but cloud cover is forecast to increase by nightfall in my area.  I may attempt to drive north of the clouds to witness another display.  Stay tuned.......

Ludington State Park - Northern Lights Again 11/07/2015

Following a heavy overcast day, I wasn't holding out much hope of viewing a potential auroral display in the hours after midnight this morning.  I woke up just as the calendar clicked over to November 7, and saw that according to spaceweather.com the Kp index was up to 5 with a possibility of intensification.  Since the dog hadn't been out since we fell asleep during the second period of the Red Wings game, we stepped outside,  me to check the cloud cover and Roscoe to water the lawn.  

    In the 3 hours that I napped on the couch the skies had just about cleared.  I packed my camera gear into the car and headed toward Ludington State Park.  As I headed up County Rd 116 I noticed glow through the clouds to the north.  I pulled over and took a 10 second exposure with my camera held on the dashboard.  There they were, the elusive glowing green pulses that I hadn't seen since...Wednesday.   

Hand held through the windshield

   I found a suitable spot on Hamlin Lake and set up the rig.

   Once again I created a video from some of the still shots. Here is the youtube link......Northern Lights 11/07/2015

Northern Lights 11/4/2015

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Northern Lights 11/04/2015

  Last night I arrived at work 20 minutes early and set up my camera to attempt to capture a Northern Lights display.  What transpired was a modest auroral display that my camera was able catch and I was able to turn into a video that I put on youtube.  Link below....

Northern Lights 11/04/15 


   In one of the photos taken before the display began my camera caught a meteor.

    The first time that I saw the Northern Lights was back on November 8, 1991. Over the years I've seen them 8 times from the state of Michigan.

 Here is a list of those dates.
November 8, 1991
November 5-6, 2001
October 29, 2003
November 20, 2003
November 7-8, 2004
November 10, 2004
March 17, 2015
November 4, 2015.

  What jumps out from the list is that 87% of the sightings occurred over 6% of the calendar that spans from October 29 to November 23.  An even tighter window from November 4 to November 10 includes 62% of my observations in a 7 day period.  The Northern Lights are more likely to occur in the spring and fall rather than summer and winter for reasons explained in the link below.
NASA explanation 

Northern Lights 3/17/2015 (with video)

    For the first time in about ten years I was able to observe and photograph a display of the Northern Lights.  A Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun on March 15 sent a shower of charged particles that interacted with Earth's magnetic field.  The ejected matter actually arrived early in the predawn (EDT) hours of March 17.   During the daylight hours for the eastern US the intensity of the interaction increased dramatically,  giving skywatchers in the eastern hemisphere a vivid display.
    Just before the onset of dusk for my location there was a slight drop off in the Auroral activity.  Usually this signifies a trend downward and the end of the geomagnetic storm.  But as the sky started to darken a quick check of spaceweather.com  showed that the fall off was just temporary and the activity re-intensified.

  Before astronomical twilight had begun the display was detected by my camera, as I set up on the roadside leading to Ludington State Park.

Green glow visible in twilight

   Who knew that a road that leads nowhere but park, would suddenly become the busiest road in Mason County.

Long exposure of passing car

  To avoid headlights washing out my photos I climbed over the dunes and reset up the camera

   It wasn't the best display I've ever seen but I had my best camera I'd ever photographed the aurora with.

  I strung together about 200 still photos and made a video that I put on youtube.  Here is the link.
Video of Northern Lights