Last Aurora of 2008 and The Moon, Jupiter, Mercury Conjunction

First of all I like to wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best in 2009.

Just as I was going to call it an early night and head off to bed I got a call from Dr. Tony Phillips at Spaceweather Phone telling me that a Solar wind was due to hit Earth the morning of the 31st. and to expect Auroras!! It would be the last Auroras of 2008. It had been overcast that night but I looked outside just in case it had cleared, and it did. Was able to get my Photon Phix in between all the clouds we have been having lately, mind you still -30c but at least clear.


If I were to rate seeing a meteor fall from the sky a "10" I would have to give Auroras a "9", very beautiful, dancing through the night sky. Deadly charged energetic particles so energetic that not even the Sun's gravity can keep hold of them, escape the Sun to form the Solar winds. Once they arrive at Earth our protective Magnetosphere direct them away from us, some charged particles sneak into our upper atmosphere where they collide with our oxygen and nitrogen molecules, turning their deadly energy into the harmless lights we see as Auroras, paintings in the sky. The Auroras got their name from Galileo Galilei, he named them after the Roman Goddess of Morning.


I would have liked to have seen the Moon, Jupiter and Mercury conjunction but due to clouds wasn't able, actually the clouds broke just after the Moon set, sucks, but hey Genie got the awesome shot below, thanks Genie!


Jupiter being the top planet in this picture, Mercury below, so Genie gets another pair of Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D glasses for submitting her image to Black holes, congratulations again Genie.

I was emailed by Find Schools Online letting me know I had made their top 100 list of Space and Astronomy Blogs, which is kind of cool, there are some really good blogs/sites that you might want to visit, nice thing is they are all together, you don't have to search around the net for them, all in one place.

I'll leave you now with a short clip I put together of the Aurora, 55 frames over a real time of 10 minutes. Also don't forget the Quadrantids Meteor Shower this Friday/ Saturday, peaking between 2 am and 6 am Saturday morning. Look to the NE under the handle of the Big Dipper around 11:00 pm Friday.

Auroras And Plasma Bullets

So I was out getting groceries Saturday morning when I got a call from my buddy at SpaceWeather.com, Dr. Tony Phillips. The good Doctor informed me of a large Solar wind heading our way and to expect Auroras. Great, no clouds but we have a huge 90% Full Moon out that night, usually you can't see any Auroras when the Moon is out in full force, takes away the contrast.



Thought I'd head out that night anyways and much to my surprise I was able to get some Aurora shots. Bonus I took a shot of the almost full Moon and Orion rising in the east, like a sleeping giant come to life, yes our friend Orion is back, so are the cold temperatures he brings with him, man was it cold, -10c, well I mean cold for this time of year, especially since I was wearing a summer jacket. Got some Aurora shots then thought to myself, hey I'll come back after the Moon sets , which was going to be around 4:00 am, I should get some even better shots.



At that time the Aurora (above image) was almost over so I thought I'd head out of town to see what I could see Aurora wise, but get this, I ran into a train, yes at 4:15 am I ran into a train, well not into it but you know what I mean.

So I'm looking to see how long it is, great not long, it just seemed long because it STOPPED! That's right it stopped, got out of the car to take a pic of it stopped, and then guess what happened?, a truck pulls up behind me, all this at 4:15 am. I was going to take a pic of the truck but thought twice when I saw the look on the guys face, about as happy as me.



After half an hour of the train stopping it started to move, of course by then it started to get light outside, I just went home.

An interesting tidbit of info here, seems they may have just found out why the Auroras dance with the help of the "THEMIS MISSION" or " Time History Of Events And Macroscale Interactions During Substorms Mission" for long, those crazy scientists and their acronyms. To sum it up, apparently the Solar wind's charged particles stretch our magnetic field much in the same way you stretch an elastic band, when the magnetic field can no longer stretch it flicks back the Solar plasma, which they call Plasma Bullets back to Earth, the explosion gives off it's energy in the form of harmless light energy, the crazy lights we call the Auroras.

I'll leave you now with a clip of 72 images I took over a time frame of 40 minutes of the Auroras I took that night, I also put a sample message from Dr. Tony at the beginning, doesn't he sound like a friendly guy?