October 30, 2016 Auroras (Dixie! Pillars!)
Two Harbors, Minnesota
The Great Lakes Aurora Hunters annual gathering was taking place this weekend. We had had three of them before this year, and so far, the auroras had not cooperated. Not that we got completely skunked. In fact, at least some people were able to get some green on their camera shots every year.
This year, we had a bit better chance of seeing them because a large coronal hole had faced Earth a couple days ago, and we had several days of high speed solar wind. This kept the geomagnetic conditions rather active. The only problem was the cloudy skies. Our only chance of seeing anything was for downslope flow off the North Shore ridge to clear out the clouds along the shore. On the first night, this never really happened, an only a sliver of auroras appeared around 3:30 AM. On the Saturday, sky conditions grew worse, and drizzle was falling, which intensified to light rain by early evening. It was not looking good.
After sunset, however, the hoped for gap in the clouds developed along the shore, and we had a shooting opportunity. The solar wind conditions were not as good as the previous night though. As soon as I saw the stars, I headed to the deck to see what the sky looked like. I saw that the horizon was brighter than the sky overhead. Initially, I thought there could be an auroral glow there, but the camera did not show the green color of the auroras. There could have been a bit of airglow.
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| The skies clear over Flood Bay. |
Off to the southeast and away from shore, the clouds were still just as thick. Below the main deck was a line of cumulus with very low bases. I decided these cumulus clouds were sufficiently interesting for a time lapse.
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| The clouds were still pretty thick to the east. |
In fact, the clouds had actually filled back in over us a bit, but there were still a few stars visible. Bz was dropping south to about -5 nT, so I decided to set up a time lapse looking north. Indeed, as the clouds began to clear again, there was a more distinct brightness behind them.
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| Some green now appears behind the clouds. |
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| The clouds continue to fluctuate along the horizon with green popping out behind them. We did some light painting, too. |
The clouds continued to look like they would fill back in, but the downslope flow off the ridge kept them at bay as the green developed on the horizon. We had been light painting and doing some other things, but at some point, enough people had green on their cameras that we all decided to focus just on the auroras. The light painting stopped. Bz was still south.
Soon, the horizon brightened a lot more, and cheers erupted from the group, which was spread up and down the beach and also shooting from a couple balconies at the hotel. Then, pillars began to show themselves, and the cheer of the evening became, "Dixie! Pillars!" Dixie was one of the two main organizers of the gathering, which was attended by about 130 people.
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| The horizon suddenly brightens, and cheers erupt. |
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| Dixie! Pillars! |
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| Dixie! Pillars! |
Around midnight, the show quieted down, and Bz went neutral or north. Almost everyone went to bed by 1:00 AM.