Dana Henriksen wrote:
Did anyone see an aurora last night?
Josephine Grahn posted an aurora alert on the Utah Astronomy email list (http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy) about 6:00 last evening that enabled several folks to get a good look before the clouds moved in. I saw it from here near SPOC as a bright blue-green glow in the north while Joe Bauman (who is doing a story about the display for the D News) drove up to Little Mountain to see it. Says he got some good pictures. But the best view I've heard about so far comes from Bill Biesele who saw the alert and drove to southern Idaho. His report read: Thanks for the heads up Josephine. Got your email and went outside - cloudy. So checked on the web and it looked like the clouds would end at about the Idaho border. Loaded up the cameras and set out. Clouds started to break about Ogden and the aurora was visible from about Brigham north; but I thought it was more clouds so we kept going north. Stopped at a rest stop just north of the border where I finally figured out it wasn't clouds in the north but the aurora. Pulled over just north of Malad and we were treated to a great show. At the peak the aurora went from Cygnus in the northwest to Gemini in the northeast and up over Cas overhead. Reds and greens; ray and waves; quite a sight!! Spent about an hour up there taking watching the show and taking pictures; then clouds started moving in from the southeast and we came back home. All in all, the best auroral display I've seen from this far south in many months. Patrick