Like breath on a mirror, a solitary curtain of northern lights reflects in Spring Lake last night at 11:45 p.m. (CDT). Photo: Bob King
The chances of aurora showing up in northern Minnesota last night were slender, and yet somehow, there it was. There was a small possibility thanks to a stronger than average solar wind streaming from a coronal hole in the sun’s atmosphere or corona. All the usual indicators – Kp index, the satellite photos of the auroral oval – showed low activity.
Before fading away around midnight, the western aurora grew a “tail” that stretched some 30 degrees long. Photo: Bob King
Again by chance, I happened to be observing the sky from the boat landing of a small lake north of Duluth, Minn. Around 11 o’clock I could see a little glow coming from behind tall trees lining the lake’s northern shore. Nothing impressive. But shortly before midnight a most remarkable “torch” of pale green light gradually swelled to brilliance all alone in the western sky.
Before it faded away, the aurora grew a long tail like some giant comet about to strike Earth. 20 minutes later it was gone. Isolated blobs like this one are unusual.
Very faint, diffuse bands of aurora striped the northern sky late into the night. You might still see minor activity tonight from the same coronal hole stream. Take a look at the northern sky before you turn in this evening.
Yesterday I wrote about seeing Comet 96P/Machholz in evening twilight. That’s how I ended up along the lake last night – I needed a good horizon to the northwest to find the comet. If you’ve never set up a telescope on a 25 degree incline 6 feet from dark water you haven’t lived.
A detailed chart of 96P/Comet Machholz’s path tonight through Aug. 2. Click chart for a larger version you can print out. The numbers are the stars’ names, not their magnitudes. Created using Emil Bonnano’s MegaStar program
Mosquitos didn’t make it any easier, but I finally nailed Machholz at 10:30 p.m. It was a small, bright, fuzzy glow through my 15-inch reflector. Like the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, I suffer for my comets. To lessen your suffering, I’ve made a more detailed chart you can use along with the one from yesterday’s blog. Click it for a larger version.
Saturn and Spica (left) along with Mars, reflect in Spring Lake last night July 24 at the end of dusk. The moon will hover below Mars tonight. Photo: Bob King
I hope you enjoyed watching the moon last night. For the northern U.S., its shallow-angled path meant it was low in the sky and set early. Tonight the moon will be a thicker crescent and make an eye-catching foursome with Mars, Saturn and Spica.
Notice that the colors of Saturn, Spica and Mars are much more obvious reflected in the water than seen “raw” in the sky. I think the water not only expands and softens the images, enriching the colors, but the underexposed reflections are more saturated than the normally exposed stars.
Hi Bob,
talking about aurora, have you ever heard of any project to film timelapses or even just pictures of aurora in 3D? That would mean two photographers or recording teams in two distant locations filming simultaneously the same aurora. I’d love to see something like that.
Spolo,
Great idea – no, I’ve not heard of anyone who’s tried. Like you said, a pair of still photos would be easy to do. If anyone’s up to it, I’ll shoot pictures on my end here in Duluth.
I hope someone is also interested. I’m use to do 3D pictures at a smaller scale, but the proportions must be same.
For the most remote ones, you’d need to record it together with someone from Ashland, or from the Aitkin County. Else, I think someone from some a place miles from your is enough for the closest ones.
I was north of Two Harbors around 07/14/12 and had shimmering Northern Lights as I watched along edge of Lake Superior. Not sure at first that it was Northern Lights because it was white–no color. I said to friend, “I bet we’re just seeing city light phenomina or truck lights bouncing around, but then it filled the northern sky in our area and had repeated waves of shimmer and dodging around for next 30-45 minutes and I became convinced it was indeed Northern Lights. When we returned to Duluth, my kids friends reported that a colorful show (N. Lights) had occurred at same time around Duluth & Superior. I’ve seen the N. Lights before … Always in color. Why would they have been all white where I saw them this time? Is this unusual? Mike.
Hi Mike,
Color can vary depending on what part of the display you see as well as how dark your sky is. The aurora appears mostly white – just the way you saw it – maybe 75% of the time because its color (usually green) is too subtle for the eye to detect. Not so for a camera, which shows the green glow very well in time exposures. Once the aurora intensifies in brightness, the first color seen by most people is pale green. This usually happens when it really starts to take off. That’s what I saw around midnight. Then the display “settled back down” and the color was gone until 2:30 a.m., when the rays were so bright, green and pink colors were obvious. By 3, the brilliant rays were nearly gone and the whole northern sky pulsed in repeated waves of colorless light. I’ve seen these “flames” many times in the past and rarely do they show color to the eye. Then around 4:30 a.m. several very bright rays formed in the eastern sky and were the most vivid pink-purple I’ve seen in years. Color varies during an auroral display from white to green, pink, purple and even blue. To some degree it’s dependent too on the sensitivity of the observer’s eye. I hope this helps answer your question.
I am so pleased that you have explained about the eye’s sensitivity, thank you. I saw the Northern Lights last Thursday near Tromso in Norway and they were white to my eyes but everyone around me marvelled at how green and amazing they were and I thought I had something wrong with my eyesight. They came out green on the camera with touches of pale yellow. So I suppose I can be very grateful to say that I’ve seen them but be disappointed that I didn’t experience the colours
Ice Maiden,
Glad you saw the lights anyway – in color or not.