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July 6, 2013 Auroras
Pokegama Lake near Grand Rapids
A slow-moving CME (filament eruption) and an approaching high speed solar stream from a coronal hole combined to make the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) point south at least -10 nT. Seeing these parameters in the solar wind, I decided it would be a good night to set up on the dock and watch auroras. There was a little haze around due to humidity and recent forest fires in Canada, so that kept the contrast rather low, and these auroras never erupted into a significant substorm. I'm wondering if that may have been due to the near constancy of the magnetic field during the night. It did not vary much.
The coronal hole at least partially responsible for these auroras is the dark spot in the top part of the photo.
1:38 AM. Auroras dance on the horizon between Grand Rapids and Cohassett.
1:44 AM.
2:57 AM. A column of blue appears above a more solid green band.
