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Jonathan Tucker
Jonathan Tucker's Sept. 30 photo captures the aurora's reflection in the Yukon lake below. For more of Tucker's work, check out Tucker's gallery on 500px.com,
The good news is that the northern lights hit the heights this weekend, with auroral displays visible as far south as Illinois — and the bad news wasn't all that bad. Sure, the glare of the "Harvest Moon" interfered somewhat, but you could argue that the moonlight added some extra shine to the show.
The northern lights are such a subtle phenomenon that they're best seen from the countryside, far from city lights, and that was the case for Jonathan Tucker, who captured the "September Lights" you see above on Sunday night, near Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory.
"I was sitting at home, and when I looked out my window I noticed the northern lights were out," he told SpaceWeather.com, "so I grabbed my camera and went to a close spot that would be away from city lights. The auroras didn't last long, but I got this shot."
Meanwhile, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Lake Superior Photo's Shawn Malone was heading home from work and watching the moon rise when he noticed spikes of greenish light to the south.
"Immediately looked to the north, and the sky was on fire," Malone told SpaceWeather.com. "Light every direction, multiple arcs at the same time overhead and to the south — had a hard time deciding which way to point the camera!"
Another Upper Michigander, Mark Riutta of Defined Visuals, caught what he called a "mild display of aurora activity" over the Portage Canal in Houghton, Mich.
"I wish it was a little better show, but once the almost full moon got higher in the sky, it seemed to diminish the aurora's intensity," Riutta, whose told me in an email.
Shawn Malone / LakeSuperiorPhoto.com
The sky is aglow during an auroral display over Michigan's Central Upper Peninsula. For more photos from Shawn Malone, check out LakeSuperiorPhoto.com.
Not to worry, Mark: What you saw was a sight that would make folks like me green with envy. Generally speaking, the best time to see an aurora would be around midnight, from a dark location with clear skies. The higher your latitude, the better. But timing is everything: It does no good to go out to an aurora-viewing spot if there's no aurora. You have to get out and look north (or look south, if you're in Australia, New Zealand or Antarctica) when geomagnetic activity is high — as it was on Sunday night.
Even if you missed Sunday's show, there are more auroral extravaganzas to come, thanks in part to the current upswing in the 11-year solar activity cycle. Keep a watch on the Space Weather Prediction Center's website and Facebook page — and for the current word on space weather, as well as pictures from past auroral displays, you can't do any better than SpaceWeather.com.
More about the aurora season:
- 'Tis the season for the northern lights
- Your guide to the northern lights
- SpaceWeather.com: Aurora gallery
- Space.com: How the northern lights work
- Cosmic Log archive for auroral glories
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, sent via email every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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I was hoping to see the "Harvest Moon" in the same photo with the Aurora's .
Still nice
Thanks
I saw the moon on my left and white aurora on my right while driving west through Banff park back in August 1972 -- it was eerie and awesome.
Awesome pictures! Wish I could have seen them in person.
So beautiful.
Excellent photographs, thanks for sharing that.
Marks picture has these streaks that look like possible electromagnetic field lines that may not have been so obvious when it was viewed live.
Majestic! Mahalo for sharing these photos.
I was refering to the 2nd photo with the caption
Granted, they all show electromagnetic activity, but that one was the most subtle.
BTW, thanks too for the commercial free video link. Rare these days :)
Cool comet coming. Visit www.astronomy.com for details.
I clicked on one of the links in the story above and it took me to a sight that had guys surfing in the U/P of Michigan in January. You guys are friggin' insane!
.... try smoking some Northern Lights, before watching the Northern Lights , for an even more awesome experience.
WOW.........just breathtaking. Earth never ceases to amaze me with her beauty especially with all the crazy man made problems in the world.
Thanks Alan this brightened my day (no pun intended)
Beautiful!
It looks so NICE!
We had cloud cover again, so again I missed out on them. But with the city lights to the East and the full moon, it probably would not have badly washed out from my yard, anyways. Great pics, so glad I could see them, even if only through someone else's lens.
What amazing sights.
In the UK we never see things like this, lucky to even have a clear night and see a few stars lol
I would love to actually experience this with my own eyes >.<
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Back in 95' after a three month stint in Alaska my friend and I were camping in the Yukon on the way back down to the lower forty-eight and I woke up at 3am and stepped outside the tent to pee. I looked up and there were five or six patches of green, each outlined in red. circling around the moon like a Ferris wheel. I'd seen the N. Lights a number of times before but never like that. Amazing!