My First Aurora

I'm late to post, but just wanted to throw out my 2 cents on the recent solar storms resulting in powerful auroras being seen all over the US! For the first time in my life I was able to see these and even more amazingly I caught pictures on my camera!

Since moving to western NY we have tried many times to head north to Lake Ontario shores for a glimpse at the aurora, always disappointed that we saw nothing. Well this night I knew we had the best chance we would get, and when I saw reports from the state start coming in I knew it was time to head north!

We grabbed the kids around 10:30pm with some warm blankets and coats to go up and see what we could. As we walked out the back door to get into our car, I looked up and saw a strange stringy cloud. I watched it and quickly realized it was not a cloud---THAT was the aurora! Directly overhead from my backyard. The set the excitement and we all piled in the car to find a darker spot. We watched the colorful "clouds" dance as we drove north about 15min.

We claimed a dark spot on the beach and let our eyes adjust, but you could see the swirls and ribbons in the north and overhead. The colors were definitely not like in the pictures--evidently the camera can pick up more than our eyes can. However we did see hues of pink mostly. 

It was neat to watch them appear and swirl, then disappear slowly. We stayed about an hour then the kids were getting bored so we headed back home. How exciting to know we saw the aurora finally! They say we are entering a very active period for the sun, and should expect much more activity to come. I'm here for it!