October 12, 2021 Auroras
Itasca County
A nice, bright display of auroras happened this evening due to a CME (coronal mass ejection) impact. Due to the time elapsed between the actual date of photography and the time I am writing this up (January 7, 2022), I forgot a few of the details of what happened (and I am looking back at data to try to remember), but there was a CME impact at 8:45 local time in the evening. Prior to that time, there was a southward Bz, probably accompanying a corotating interaction region (CIR). My photography indicates there were already auroras by 9:24 PM local time, so there must have been good solar wind conditions already. I just needed to go out and start shooting. The effects of the CME would enhance whatever auroras I was already seeing.
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| Here's what the auroras looked like when I arrived at Prairie Lake at 9:24 PM. |
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| The auroras brightened considerably by 10 PM, so I decided to change to my 16-35mm lens. |
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| By 11:12 PM, a bright substorm was in progress. |
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| The auroras danced around, and a second bright region appeared closer to the horizon. |
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| I pointed the camera more northeast as the auroras dimmed slightly, and taller columns developed. |
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| Trying to tilt the camera upward as much as possible. |
I then decided to go over to Mt. Itasca and shoot from the top of the jump. I must have needed to check on something there, so that is why I went. I would not normally have a reason to shoot from the top of the jump. It's a high point of view, but the view of the horizon is not much better than it would be from a lake, and a number of lights often interfere with nighttime photography. The artificial light situation improved considerably when the Magnetation Plant 4 shut down.
By the time I got to Mt. Itasca, the auroras were dimming down quite a bit. I decided to continue shooting to see if things improved, but I was here during the subsiding stage of the substorm. The solar wind conditions still looked okay, but I was in a downtime between substorms.
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| View of the auroras from the top of the jump at Mt. Itasca. |
I could have stayed at Mt. Itasca longer, but I decided I wanted to go back somewhere north of town. I usually like the darker skies better north of Grand Rapids. I drove to Deer Lake, overshot my turn, then drove back west to the boat landing. I did the rest of my photography from there.
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| I moved over to the Deer Lake boat landing, and the auroras brightened again. This is the start of another substorm. |
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| This is the brightest part of the second substorm of the night. |
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| The auroras were reaching almost overhead. |
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| Then there were more patchy, pulsating auroras. I shot until about 2:05 AM. |
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