November 8th, 2004 Northern Lights visible in the Ozarks:

November 8th, 2004 Northern Lights visible in the Ozarks: Suprisingly strong solar activity brings the Northern Lights to the Ozarks. Mike Smith has the story: Links: Evan Bookbinder's pictures of Northern Lights
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November 7, 2004 Aurora Borealis

I had never seen the northern lights until tonight, and there are no words to describe tonight's extremely rare aurora down here in the Missouri Ozarks. We had a great opportunity almost 2 years ago to the day which was unfortunately masked by a full moon. As you can see below, this was a lifetime event for sure and tomorrow could be even better as energy from an X-class flare races toward earth (tonight's event was from the first weaker M-class flare)!!! It's been long time since we've had solar activity of this magnitude, and what better opportunity under crystal clear skies, a dry atmosphere and a nearly new moon.

Background: I took all but the last few shots from the National Weather Service office in Springfield, MO. Great unimpeded view to the north and fairly rural other than airport lights. I have very little knowledge of photography, but I basically used settings provided by other photographers on spaceweather.com and it worked great! Using my Canon Powershot G3, these photos were taken at ISO400, F2-2.8 with exposure times ranging from 8 to 15 seconds.

The first shots below were of a general green banded glow that stretched from NNW to NE across the northern sky at about 20 degrees above horizon. In many of the pictures you'll note dotted streaks which are the many aircraft surely enjoying the show tonight. There are also a few solid streaks which were meteors, likely precursors to tomorrow's Leonid shower (oh boy do I see potential!!).

For more info on this event and aurora, check out my NWS public information statement.

Pictures were taken between 8:30 and 10:15 PM CST.

Set #1. In picture 9 & 10, the building you see is the upper air building used to launch weather balloons. Neat effect I think, although those lights are a tad bright.

Picture 1 Picture 6 Picture 2 Picture 7 Picture 3 Picture 8 Picture 4 Picture 9 Picture 5 Picture 10

WIthin a matter of 10 seconds, the sky just list up with pillars, sheets and banded streaks. The reds jumped to life too. Some of these are simply AMAZING.

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They're even visible from my own backyard with tons of light around.

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