So there's a chance to still see these John, I mean if it's clear again tonight? We are having major Summer weather, it stay warm all night here, like inland!
I've not followed the reports, but Don said these are not gonna quell until Sunday (tomorrow.) Sadly, there's another cloudy night here. I stay up all hours of the night to watch various astronomical events, and am missing out on something like this that you can see as soon as it gets dark (keep in mind these lights are happening right now...we just can't see them in daylight.)
Ok John, I will hope for you to have a clear night tonight. It's so unusual for us, and I best take advantage and stay up late to see these tonight since I have another chance Shoot, I got up once about 2 a.m. but sort of like a zombie when I do that, lol!!
I don't believe you have to stay up late (depending on how you define "late".) These are happening right now, all day long, and become visible as soon as it starts to get dark.
Well there's a thought, not sure when it gets dark but it isn't yet when I finally put my book down. Crazy hours of sleeping for last year, in bed by 8, still light, but I'll pay attention tonight. Doubt my phone would get a decent photo if I do see them, need to find out what direction to look, I'm guessing North? If that's true then I have a good wide opening to see the skies if I look North I'm sure learning a lot about these Solar Flares, I never connected, or maybe just wasn't paying attention to why we get the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) here on Earth. When I first saw you all talking about the "flare" and it disrupting the "grid" I didn't connect that with Northern Lights Duh! I still don't have a good handle on how it all comes about but thanks to seniorsonly I can learn new things
We are still having more solar flares, and they are strong ones. I read they are up to 7 of them now. Here is what it looked like in the sky above us when I went outside to look about 3AM last night. (So… it really was not the cicadas we were hearing, after all)
Check these out shot from my friends house in Winston Oregon!! She put them up on Facebook, and took them with her phone! Oh yes, it was at 11 pm PST
Yep, but the field is weakening, supposedly a precursor to a magnetic flip sometime in the future. The magnetic north pole has moved from Canada over into Siberia I think, but as the field weakens, the danger of a Carrington-like event increases. I think the biggest danger is on the other side of Solar Max, as the Sun's activity begins to wane. I don't know why. Your position beneath the field does govern the appearance of the aurora somewhat. The only dome display I have ever seen was in Pennsylvania in the 1960s, although I have seen the aurora thousands of times since moving to Alaska. I used to see it almost every night on my commute home, as I often commuted late at night. The idiots put l highway lights into the area where I most often saw them to help avoid moose collisions in the dark and eliminated my favorite viewing area. The most fascinating display I have seen was in the wilderness up near Denali park. We had shooting displays that shot colors across the sky. I also met one musher who claimed to have experienced the aurora near the ground. He claimed it made the air around him sparkle for a few minutes then it disappeared. I don't know if I believe that, but I can't rule it out. I don't what the field would look like at the point it approached the surface.
I gotta think that the point where all those magnetic lines of flux converge must set up conditions for all sorts of unique stuff. Does Alaska ever pass under that juncture?
I think the flux is centered over Canada and the geographic pole. I don't know for sure. Here is Max Velocity's comments on the solar storm and aurora: