the only northern lights I saw last night were in my dreams

[ghostjmf]

And pretty spectacular they were there, as they took over a large night-black "portal" in an otherwise blue sky.

I know that's not how they work, folks.


It was a dream.

After the news reported people seeing some yellowish stuff along the horizon over the Cape Cod Canal, I had the choice or either driving south to see yellowish stuff along the horizon or driving north either to NH or Maine in hopes of more dramatic stuff. Instead I fell asleep. I really was too tired to drive safely at that point. And I was supposed to wake up before dawn, usually something I'm sadly doing anyway these days, for another chance at sighting, but this is the one day I didn't.


There've been years when I drove wildly (but safely, of course) north for a couple hours & seen nada. But I'll do it again if I'm not too tired to drive. If a green or yellow horizon glow is the best I'll ever see, I think I may have already seen that, years ago. I want the dramatic stuff.


My sister saw them once from our front lawn in Ohio. She also got to watch a complete solar eclipse from a friend's porch in Germany, when she was living in Germany.

[grebelschnitz]

And pretty spectacular they were there, as they took over a large night-black "portal" in an otherwise blue sky.

I know that's not how they work, folks.


It was a dream.

After the news reported people seeing some yellowish stuff along the horizon over the Cape Cod Canal, I had the choice or either driving south to see yellowish stuff along the horizon or driving north either to NH or Maine in hopes of more dramatic stuff. Instead I fell asleep. I really was too tired to drive safely at that point. And I was supposed to wake up before dawn, usually something I'm sadly doing anyway these days, for another chance at sighting, but this is the one day I didn't.


There've been years when I drove wildly (but safely, of course) north for a couple hours & seen nada. But I'll do it again if I'm not too tired to drive. If a green or yellow horizon glow is the best I'll ever see, I think I may have already seen that, years ago. I want the dramatic stuff.


My sister saw them once from our front lawn in Ohio. She also got to watch a complete solar eclipse from a friend's porch in Germany, when she was living in Germany.

We were disappointed last night as well, as it was raining.

[ghostjmf]

It was clear here. It isn't tonight; its already very overcast.


If I had heard about something spectacular north of here, I'd have gotten in my car & gone as far as I could get before I conked out. There are, sadly, a lot of lights on the roads around here out, to make viewing of northern lights better, of course. But Cape Cod Canal*; 1st I'd have to actually look up what they mean (is it what they're singing about in the chanteys when they sing "straight up the channel to New Bedford we'll go"? we'll see), then drive through Boston, which is largely lit up, for the 1st 1/2 of the hour or so down.

I didn't see anything on the media or internet this morning yelling "you missed it", which somehow doesn't make me feel any better.


*Nope, its a real canal, says Wiki:

The Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway in the state of Massachusetts connecting Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south.

This also explains why you have to drive over flippin' bridges to get to & from the Cape. Duhhh. I mean, I always knew about the bridges since I'd driven over them, but not what exact waterway they were crossing, if the Cape was a Cape & not an island.

[Bob Juch]

Here're some photos for you:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/so ... as-n202781

[ghostjmf]

Well, thanks. I wasn't likely to have been able to drive to Finland or Sweden (except by accident, though possible, considering the driving I've been doing lately; not posting about that one here) or even Alaska, in time. At least they weren't photos from New Hampshire & Maine. The Minnesota photos were more like what was reported over the Cape Cod Canal, though better still. If you have to decide whether what you are seeing are northern lights or the flare from a power plant, you are probably not having the peak northern lights experience. (At least in the Minnesota photos they didn't have any distracting power plants around).