The coronal mass ejection

[Chet]

Sounds like something I did in college, but a cool story . Remeber, when a coronal mass ejection hits, duck and cover!

Predictions?

 

[Richmond Jake]

I predict that by the time it reaches North America (PST), I'll be in bed making the sign of the two humped camel.

 

[Rumpy Tunanator]

Predictions?

Yep the Raelians are going to commit mass suicide because they're already cloned.

 

[SkeLeton]

watch out for the falling sattelites....nah... won't happen. just forget about trying to use your GPS or sattelite or cell phone properly. And if you have scheduled to see a movie and you have sattelite TV.. forget about it.

Did nostradamus say anything about CMEs?

 

[PlannerGirl]

the dork i moved to DC to marry works on this stuff out at the Navel Research Lab in DC. CME are pretty darn cool, and the damage they do is pretty damn serious.

Yha i like geeks

 

[Seabishop]

"Airlines are also alerted, because some navigation systems may be affected"

Great, I'm flying Sunday morning! :-\

 

[PlannerGirl]

The worst of it is today, right about now infact between 2-6 PM EST but there will be waves following that all night. Looking at the data it seems more are brewing in the days (weeks?) ahead.

I think its cool go to the Noaa site and check out the pics

 

[mike gurnee]

Y2K is finally here!

 

[Chet]

Nerudite - let us know how the northern lights are!

 

[biscuit]

Nerudite - let us know how the northern lights are!

The report said that they should be visable as far south as Illinois. I'll be out in the country this weekend so maybe I'll get a veiw of them away from the light pollution of the city.

I remember a year or two back there was some type of solar flare up that enabled us to see the northern lights down in northwestern South Carolina. That not being a normal occurence, the county Sheriffs Dept. recieved hundreds of calls from people reporting everything from UFO's to the mountains being on fire. Beautiful.

 

[Chet]

Here comes the big one

CNN reports that Wednesday 10-29-03 event is the third largest on record and the strongest recorded to hit earth. It is huge compared to last weeks! This could be interesting, especially in California which doesnt need any more problems right now.

 

[SkeLeton]

Holy! So, if tomorrow I can't get on Cyburbia.. I'll blame it on CMEs

And about the 11 year cycle of activity of the Sun, it appears to have a double peak (so this would be the double peak year) , and it isn't the only cycle of the Sun...

 

[jordanb]

I wish I'd known that the Aurora would be visible from Illinois last Friday. I would have taken the train out of town to watch it.

 

[BiteMeElmo]

I just spent two weeks setting up and getting my satellite system working. If I miss the season premiere of That '70's Show tonight, I'll be pissed.

Otherwise the whole CME thing is dead cool. I hope the auroras are as strong as they are predicting.

 

[Cardinal]

I wish I'd known that the Aurora would be visible from Illinois last Friday. I would have taken the train out of town to watch it.

That wouldn't be necessary if you had a car. Oh well, I suppose you can just see some of the images on television tonight.

 

[SGB]

Another one on the way this afternoon

 

[nerudite]

Nerudite - let us know how the northern lights are!

I wish I could!!!! I've been bitching and moaning for days now because we have had cloud cover pretty much since the last solar flare a week ago. Stupid Alberta... it's sunny here all the time, except when something good is going on up in the sky. I think I've missed every major aurora event and meteor shower since I've been here. Grrrrrrrr.

 

[BiteMeElmo]

I wish I could!!!! I've been bitching and moaning for days now because we have had cloud cover pretty much since the last solar flare a week ago. Stupid Alberta... it's sunny here all the time, except when something good is going on up in the sky. I think I've missed every major aurora event and meteor shower since I've been here. Grrrrrrrr.

. /\
. /| \
. |
. |
. |
. |
Example of the bitching

The moaning comes later

 

[Jeff]

Nerudite - let us know how the northern lights are!

Used to smoke alot of it in college, da bomb!

 

[Rumpy Tunanator]

Used to smoke alot of it in college, da bomb!

That stuff was responsible for making me sleep under some newspapers and sticks in the middle of the woods back in 9th grade. Wow I was messed up, expecially with all the trees playing tricks on me.

 

[donk]

They were super intense here last night. 10 minute drive outside the city the sky looked like it was on fire. Great shades of green and orange.

I took some long exposure shots(30 seconds - 1 minute), hopefully one or two work out. if they do I'llscan and post.

 

[nerudite]

Yeah, it was bright up here too. There is a highway onramp (with lots of orange lights) just to the north of our house, and I could still see the aurora last night. Usually the aurora is a sheet of green in the north sky that looks misty (here)... last night it was this green snake that was moving all over the sky. It looked like a sidewinder... it was so cool! I'm glad I stayed up to see it, because it's supposed to get cloudy again tonight

 

[donk]

Just got my pictures back, they turned out pretty good for my first try at night time extended exposures. In my rating system, they are about a 6 (acceptable exposure, acceptable compostion, good colour, just something missing to make them "special").

It will take a while to get them scanned, but I will post the best ones when i do.

it was pretty odd, none of the greens turned out, only the reds.

 

[donk]

As promised, here are a few of the better images.

If you look closely, you can see power lines and make out the shape of trees.









These were all taken using a canon AE1, with a 17 mm ultra low distortion wide angle lens.

Exposure was 4, length of time for each shot was 30-45 seconds. I wish I had a tripod.

 

[JNA]

You must be a very serious photographer,
do you keep camera setting records for every shot?

Gotta be careful around those cyburbian's using words like exposure and distortion. (sorry those cyburbian's)

 

[donk]

You must be a very serious photographer,
do you keep camera setting records for every shot?

Only with shots like these, this is one of my first attempts at night time extended exposure photography. Just sharing my numberes incase anyone else wants to try it.

If I had the guts, and a bit of cash I'd become a professional photographer.