Starship Asterisk*

Aurora in the Backyard

Explanation: On the night of March 17/18 this umbrella of northern lights unfolded over backyards in Vallentuna, Sweden about 30 kilometers north of Stockholm. A result of the strongest geomagnetic storm of this solar cycle, auroral displays were captured on that night from back and front yards at even lower latitudes, including sightings in the midwestern United States. A boon for aurora hunting skywatchers, the space storm began building when a coronal mass ejection, launched by solar activity some two days earlier, struck planet Earth's magnetosphere. So what's the name of the backyard observatory on the right of the wide field view? That's Carpe Noctem Observatory, of course.

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Aurora's are nice to look at, but tomorrow's APOD is 'new moon'. I'm waiting to see what the picture looks like.

Awesome, and he took it from the Backyard...

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They say we had auroras over Malmö, too.

But I was asleep.

Ann

Ionic umbrella

What's that stuff in the top of the picture that looks like lightening?

Man, that looks so amazing. I wish I could have been there to see that!

JLewis98856 wrote:What's that stuff in the top of the picture that looks like lightening?

Some tree tops, if we're both looking at the same thing.

geckzilla wrote:

JLewis98856 wrote:What's that stuff in the top of the picture that looks like lightening?

Some tree tops, if we're both looking at the same thing.

I love it when geckzilla drops some knowledge!

Beyond wrote:Aurora's are nice to look at, but tomorrow's APOD is 'new moon'. I'm waiting to see what the picture looks like.

Maybe someone has found a new moon of Saturn or Jupiter?

"Magnum diem dictō gratias ago tibi"

http://mentalfloss.com/article/57898/20 ... d-be-using

The list should have included "good day to say thank you" since we weren't there to carpe camera but we still got to sees that awesome night. Kudos to Clear Skies!

(Sorry about the Latin. It's Greek to me. Maybe in my next life I'll know what to use a "meta" for?)

starsurfer wrote:

Beyond wrote:Aurora's are nice to look at, but tomorrow's APOD is 'new moon'. I'm waiting to see what the picture looks like.

Maybe someone has found a new moon of Saturn or Jupiter?

NEW MOON: The second in the Twilight Series
The NEW MOON is the only phase the moon can be in during the occurrence of a Solar Eclipse, like the one tomorrow

We had cloudy skies - but folks south of us were lucky.

Beyond wrote:
Aurora's are nice to look at, but tomorrow's APOD is 'new moon'.
I'm waiting to see what the picture looks like.

Actually, a new moon could be rather interesting ...
.. provided, of course, that there are active erupting plumes to be observed:

• http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140804.html
  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap960815.html

Now it just so happens that the Dawn spacecraft is biding its time on the 'boring' dark side of Ceres:

• http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/fullview2.jpg

However, there just might be active erupting plumes to be observed:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/03191629-lpsc-2015-dawn-at-ceres.html wrote:
LPSC 2015: First results from Dawn at Ceres: provisional place names and possible plumes!

Awesome