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February 19, 2020 Auroras

Grand Rapids, MN

Some enhanced solar wind conditions occurred this evening, so I went out and shot my first auroras of 2020. These were the best I've seen since August 5, 2019. It doesn't take much, in solar minimum, to make me happy. Once the new solar cycle gets up and running, it remains to be seen what the effect of the shifting geomagnetic poles will have on our aurora visibility. At the beginning of Cycle 24, a Kp value of 5 would sometimes bring auroras directly overhead (or nearly so). For this show, the Kp index reached 5, but the auroras were about 20-25 degrees above the horizon. No show is the same, and the southward extent of the auroras is not always very closely related to the Kp index, but I would expect fewer overhead aurora shows during Solar Cycle 25 than we had during Solar Cycle 24.

One experiment I wanted to run was to take a comparison with what I could see on the horizon with the webcam at Churchill, Manitoba, which I believe to be the farthest distance I can see the auroras. When a brightening of the auroras happened right on the horizon, directly to the north, I brought up the Churchill webcam to see what it was showing. The aurora structures looked consistent with what I was seeing firsthand from my distant location.

Nice Auroras
Auroras appear over McKinney Lake in Grand Rapids just after 10:00 PM local time.
Nice Auroras
Auroras over Pughole Lake around 10:30 PM local time.
Nice Auroras
Pughole Lake, just a little later around 10:39 PM local time.
Nice Auroras
Here's one of the last images I took, around 11:18 PM. I wanted to compare the auroras at the bottom (on horizon) with the Churchill cam.
Nice Auroras
Video capture I made just a minute later from the Churchill cam.
Nice Auroras
VIIRS imagery around 12:25 AM.

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