Surprise Aurora

[martinastro]

Stunning Corona John!

I recall seeing that same display Roman and did see the charts. The KP reached the top of the scales and the auroral oval was bood red and covered much of the N. hemisphere not far from the Equator. The SOHO C3 image looked like it was hit by a shotgun, a complete white out, no stars visible. We had a week with intense auroras every single night, many of  them all night long. I just can't wait until those nights com back!!

[Roman White]

(...) I just can't wait until those nights com back!!

This must be a few years later, but... you have already seen an aurora this month! Maybe some more next winter?

[martinastro]

I'm hoping to see some action sooner that that Roman  . I was looking at the Geo conditions for those big auroras in 2003 and found this image of the sunspot activity at the time....



I checked my log book and found out that these where visible to the naked eye at the time, three big spots at the same time. The top one was a double and gave the impression of looking down the barrel of a shotgun, which the Earth was in a way.

Here's the spaceweather page from that time. If you flick through the various days before and after that time you will get a good idea of the impressive activity back then.

http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=29&month=10&year=2003