I thought I'd share this in case any night owls want to try to photograph the sky tonight / tomorrow morning.
I pulled these paragraphs from a larger article, which you can find at the link below:
"The sun unleashed an X-class solar flare — the most powerful type — at 12:52 p.m. EDT (1652 GMT) on Thursday (July 12). The storm also triggered a huge eruption of solar plasma known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME, which is now streaking directly toward Earth at roughly 3 million mph (5 million kph)."
"The CME is expected to hit our planet at 6:20 a.m. EDT (1020 GMT) Saturday (July 14), plus or minus seven hours, according to researchers with the Space Weather Lab at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md."
"The CME 'could produce aurora as far south as northern California and Alabama,' C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA Goddard, told SPACE.com in an email update. 'This would be into central UK and Europe or southern New Zealand.'"
I am in the right location for this one. Will definitely be looking to the sky tonight and the early morning hours. Never did I think I would get to see the Northern Lights over my house! Scary yet exciting.
Hmmm. It will have to make it up to a kp of 8 or 9 to spot them here. Maybe I'll keep my eyes open. It only takes 30 minutes to get to some good dark skies. I'm always jealous when I see these announcements.
Looks like there were some aurora shots from Washington and higher elevation Oregon spots. It also looks like less common red nitrogen aurora. Of course I'm down in San Diego this week. How's that going to help me? :)
