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November 16, 2014 Auroras

Coleraine, Minnesota

A high speed solar stream hit Earth this evening with Bz dropping to the -5 nT to -7 nT range and speeds kicking up to nearly 700 km/s. This ignited an auroral substorm just after 9:00 PM CST. I was helping make snow at Mount Itasca Winter Sports Center in Coleraine. At 9:00 PM, I took a break from moving snow guns and headed up the ski hill to get a view of the northern horizon. There was a lot of light pollution from Coleraine, the lights in the biathlon statium, and the new Magnetation Plant #4, which was directly north of Mount Itasca. I took a few shots on my way up the hill as I could see an auroral oval a few degrees above the horizon. Just as I reached the top, the oval brightened considerably, indicating an imminent substorm. I decided to climb the 70-meter ski jump to get an even better view.

Indeed, the substorm commenced as I was ascending the jump, and when I got to the top, a lot of structure was present. The Magnetation lights were really bright, so I decided to block them out with part of the ski jump structure. This worked reasonably well, but there was still a lot of glow from the haze and light snow falling. The dendritic snow created a couple light pillars above Magnetation, and these pillars lined up above the auroras pretty nicely. I shot a couple time lapse sequences then went back down the jump as the auroras faded.

Nice Auroras
Auroras and light pillars from the 70 meter ski jump at Mount Itasca.
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Magnetation Facility.
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Snow-making activities and auroras.
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A look down the ski jump.

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