August 23, 2013 Auroras
Pokegama Lake, Grand Rapids, MN
Doing more motion control and software exposure ramping tests (just learning how to do it) at sunset, when the auroras appeared as soon as it got dark enough to see them. They were bright enough for a while that the moon did not completely wash them out. These auroras faded by midnight, so I was able to get a decent night's sleep. It's nice having somewhat shorter days at this time of year so you can see auroras in the evening and not get to bed too late.
These auroras were most likely caused by a combination of weak CME impacts (one from an M1 flare earlier in the week, and maybe another from a filament eruption) in addition to a high speed solar stream from the same coronal hole that provided auroras on June 1, June 29, and July 26.
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| The brightest auroras of the evening at 9:38 PM CDT on August 22. f2.8, 12 sec., ISO-800, 24mm, cropped to about 80 percent of original size. |