Saturday, October 18, 2014

Solar Shock Wave




There were AWESOME northern lights last night! It was an unexpected (for me, anyway) occurrence as Earth passed through a region of south-pointing magnetism in the solar wind. I didn't know there was even a chance of northern lights until I looked at the Aurora Soft Serve News website late in the afternoon and saw that the aurora was "Active". I kept checking the site throughout the evening and the kp index kept creeping up until eventually it was at "Storm" level! We had quite a few clouds at sunset which had me discouraged but not long after the sun went down the sky cleared and stayed that way the entire night. I left the house at 11:00 PM and returned about 4:00 AM. This photo is my favorite out of the 300+ images that I shot last night. I was even lucky enough to capture a shooting star in the top left of the photo! The feeling that you get as these waves of aurora wash through the sky is indescribable. Let's just say you feel very humbled and fortunate to be able to witness such an awe-inspiring phenomenon!

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