The Aurora Borealis from Central California

It has been a shocking evening. I by no means believed the auroras would make it into Central California, and a lot of the predictions steered it would not. However then reviews began pouring in; sightings in South Carolina, northwest Florida, Houston, after which Demise Valley. I needed to give it an opportunity. Mrs. Geotripper and I hopped within the automobile and headed out to the California Prairie south of Knights Ferry.
As we pulled up on the small inventory pond on Willms Street, it did not appear to be a lot was happening. I satisfied myself that there was a little bit of a purple glow within the sky, and I began taking footage with my cellphone (my common digital camera turned out to be ineffective for as soon as). On the display it wasn’t apparent, however there was certainly some coloration. 
I might have been glad with that, as I’ve seen the aurora solely twice earlier than. The primary time was from throughout the Grand Canyon on my very first geology area research journey in 1975. It was only a glow within the sky then, and we thought it was gentle air pollution from Las Vegas or St. George, however it turned from purple to inexperienced. We have been awestruck, however there was no construction to be seen. The opposite time was within the late Nineties once we have been in Montana on a largely wet evening, however for a brief second a filament appeared via the clouds. And that was that.
Having so little expertise with the phenomena, I merely did not know what to anticipate, however we have been turning into conscious that the lights have been altering as we watched. Spires got here and went, and the glow moved to totally different elements of the sky. The colours have been altering as properly.
We watched till midnight when the chilly breeze and lack of services pressured us to start out the drive residence, however as we went round every bend, we could not resist stopping a second to see what modified.
The adjustments have been many. An increasing number of inexperienced was displaying close to the horizon, and blue or purple appeared off to the west.


For sure possibly, however it was an astounding factor to see. I ought to observe that whereas I’ve not modified the photographs (particularly the saturation), the cellphone digital camera did see extra vivid coloration than I did. I used to be utilizing the evening shot setting, so it was gathering gentle for 2 or three seconds, so the photographs are extra colourful. Besides, it was simple to grasp why the ancients thought these lights emanated from the gods.