Aurora Arrives! Welcome Back Dancing Lights!

Last night we were treated to a sky filled with swirling colorful lights. The evening started off with the aurora peeking out from a slightly cloudy sky in the northeast. It made for some dramatic photos- perhaps more dramatic than it looked in reality. A short while later, the sky had cleared and the lights were dancing around the sky in every direction.

The lights were welcomed with shouts of joy! We have had a cloud cover here since we arrived on Thursday, and this was particularly frustrating because we knew a bright aurora was hidden behind those clouds. We could see a green glow on the webcam at explore.org/live-cams/player/northern-lights-cam. The camera is right outside on the roof of the old building.

Roger Starman Woloshyn, our fearless leader/astronomer, had us primed with lectures on both the aurora and the stars. Turned out to be a perfect night to find all those constellations shining in the winter sky. Below is a photo of the southern sky where you can see Orion just below a band of aurora. I just noticed that part of Taurus the Bull is in the upper right corner. Look for a "V".  It wouldn't be long before the aurora would fill the southern landscape.

Think about that for a minute- the fact that the aurora is filling the SOUTHERN sky. Here in Churchill we stand right below the auroral oval, so when there is a strong aurora and the oval bulges, the aurora will actually be south of us rather than north.
Right now there is an unusually wide hole that has opened in the sun's atmosphere, and it is stretching across the sun's southern hemisphere. Check out spaceweather.com to see a photo of this dramatic opening. This opening is a coronal hole which allows solar wind to escape, and this stream of solar wind collides with Earth's magnetic field. We wait expectantly for Aurora to present herself to us later this week.

Later that evening there were some gentle bands of aurora behind the spruce trees right out in back of the center. This is pretty much the view from our bedroom window on this visit, the same view I always love to photograph during daylight hours. Of course, I was outside for these shots.

Mother Nature cooperated with very little wind and a "mild" temperature of 15-20 degrees F. Snowstorms are coming, but we'll be checking the skies tonight for another visit of the aurora borealis.