Friday, March 9, 2012

Another aurora dud

After an X5 solar flare earlier in the week, hopes were high for an aurora borealis display on Thursday. Unfortunately, the CME from the flare hit the Earth sometime early on Thursday during the daylight hours, and on top of that the magnetic field was aligned in the opposite manner that would be favorable for a lights display in the sky. Even so, there was the chance that the field would reverse and we would be in luck. Heather Brinkmann and I headed out from DeKalb once the data started flipping around weirdly, and had a very faint low green band on the horizon again, similar to what we saw last month.

This didn't last long however, and we spent almost two hours out there waiting in vein for the sky to catch fire. Hoping to time lapse the arrival of the aurora I kept the camera going, and ultimately just ended up with a long star trail sequence.

This would have been a pretty sweet foreground for an aurora display, so I guess I will just have to keep it in mind for later.


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