Click here to launch the aurora site in a new window
Matawan Robert passed along this link and it is worth a look. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of these. I have only seen them once, about 3 years ago. In Tuxedo Park, NY, I noticed light, at night, in the North, where there shouldn’t be any light and we raced down to the lake where it was dark and got about a 20 minute show of mostly red auroras. They move and shimmer and fluctuate like a balky florescent tube light bulb and they are so amazing, you have to ask yourself, “…am I imagining this?”
With our levels of light pollution off of NYC and the North Jersey sprawl, we have very un-dark skies, so Tuxedo was key to seeing them as it is about 60% darker than down in NJ. There’s a whole tourist trade in this stuff in Alaska, where you can almost be guaranteed to see them. The Japanese have a religious/cultural deal for newlyweds to go and try and see them. Unsure what it means but they are big with the Alaska tourist trade, looking to see this.
Normally, the sun runs in 11 year cycles that used to be very, very regular, but lately ( I KNOW, don’t tell Al Gore) the cycles have been in flux, as has the overall output of the sun (shhhhh, don’t tell Al, he’s making too much money not knowing). As you may know, the sun causes these things and the sun does most of its hijinks around the 11 year maximum. I think the nodes are 1988, 1999, 2010. Seeing them this far South (41 degrees North Lat) in the middle of the cycle, like we did in 2004, is not supposed to happen, but it has, apparently.
Anyway, these photos are amazing. Thanks Berto.
