AstroGypsies

It has been many years since we were treated to an aurora as widely seen as the show on May 10, 2024, decades actually, 2003 we stopped riding lessons on a Friday night and had the kids and adults all go out and check out the reds streaking across the sky! Mike and I sat outside, looking to the North, waiting. That would be the normal direction it comes in from…but no! Look West Mike proclaimed as flashes of bright red and pink formed a dome of light behind us!

Hey! I said, you are supposed to be over the lake, what about my reflections. I was complaining to the aurora yes…sigh…photographers;) So this what Kp 8 and 9 look like! The needle was pegged on the scale and the numbers were off the scale by all accounts! People in Arizona and Baja could see the reds and pinks, mainly because those colours are at such a high altitude!

And how does altitude affect the colors of the aurora? Green-colored auroras are most frequent, resulting from interactions with oxygen molecules at lower altitudes (between 100-300 km or 62-180 mi), while the less commonly occurring red auroras form from interactions with higher altitude (above 300 km or 180 mi) oxygen molecules, or so NOAA tells me!

It slowly shifted over the lake as I stood and let the camera do it’s magic. I could clearly see the pinks and reds but the greens were light. It was a magical sight! I made it until midnight and then crawled off to bed as it seemed to subside but it did keep going all night as I looked out the window a few times and the whole sky was a glow, like it was full moon! What a rare treat! Hopefully with solar maximum still to come, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) estimates that solar maximum could occur between late 2024 and early 2026 we will have a few more spectacular shows! The clouds even added a nice effect!

Apparently Mother nature, after keeping me up half the night with the aurora, decided I should get up at an unworldly hour for a sunrise as well;) Not complaining…ha! Groot was not impressed that there were no crunchy offerings for him guarding the door! No sleeping in at all!

…and for the green…it’s that bright lime Spring green, fresh leaves, fresh grass, buds…it’s an explosion of green! Along the road the Ostrich ferns are uncurling. The tightly wound immature fronds, called fiddleheads, are also used as a cooked vegetable, and are considered a delicacy mainly in rural areas of northeastern North America. It is considered inadvisable to eat uncooked fiddleheads. Brown “scales” are inedible and should be scraped or rinsed off.

..and that morel was HUGE! The Spring wildflowers are poking their heads out of the leaves as well as some flowering shrubs! Green and now colour!

Now with the flowers…come the bugs! We have had an explosion of dragonflies and butterflies, but I’ll save that for tomorrow! Enough green! Bring on the flapping colour! Ha! Saludos amigos!