Michigan's Elusive Aurora Borealis - a photo on Flickriver

            Equinox Aurora Borealis over Lake Michigan (9/20/2015)

On the night of September 20th 2015, an M2.0 class solar CME sparked aurora that was powerful enough to be seen in the Northern portion of the Continental United states.

 I was quite fortunate to experience a deep black cloudless night sky, and captured many beautiful images of the aurora peeking out from the northern horizon over Lake Michigan.

  When the Aurora shines through the clouds, or drifts up from the horizon, there is an intoxicating feeling you get from its beauty, it's like staring at the flames rising up from a bonfire in the darkness of night. You see massive portions of the night sky flicker with the dull green glow of lightning fast rippling sheets of light, moving like the shape shifting camouflage of an octopus. 

Long morphing rivers of green, blue, red, yellow, purple orange and white light slowly flow and change shape over the course of a couple of minutes, with the same unpredictability as a stream of electricity jumping from one Tesla coil to another. Ghostly towering thin ribbons of light protrude hundreds of miles up into the darkness of space. creating what looks like a gigantic moving Gothic cathedral of lights and colors all around and above you.

Earth becomes the test vehicle in a cosmic wind tunnel, with wind in the form of a heliospheric current sheet testing the magnetic drag coefficient of her polar caps.  

Location - Traverse City, Michigan, Old Mission Peninsula.
 L/L- 45º North, 85º West.

(Hemispheric power peaking @ 58.95 Gigawatts)

This is a panoramic stitch, comprised of two photos.

EXIF:
-F-Stop: f/3.5
-Exposure time: 30 seconds
-ISO speed: 2000
-Focal length 18mm
-Metering mode: multi-segment 

© Evan Lannen
   

Taken in: United States / Michigan / Grand Traverse (show map)

Taken on: September 19, 2015

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