Any northern lights tonight?

[surferguy]

They just died down for now. Keep checking, they will flare up again.

I was watching about 20/30 mins ago and the lights had intensity pulses running through them. Super cool to see

[bc-chris]

i could see them in kelowna tonight. i woke up my daughter (11 yrs old) to show her. she thought it was "super cool" becuz she had always wanted to see them.

could see the intensity pulsing too - very cool!

[Doctorfever]

I could see them a few minutes ago. Not as strong.

But watched for an hour from hot tub.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

I didn't get a good look at it (didn't realize it was happening until almost the end).

Basically saw a reddish tinge to the sky.

Everyone on my Facebook feed, on the other hand... it's flooded with pictures of the Northern Lights (with the odd Simpsons joke thrown in).

[nixon45]

Wow they must have been really strong at about 3am this morning as well. Even my ring doorbell camera picked them up out in Elbow Valley!

[undercoverbrother]

my wife and I sat on our front step at 5am having out coffee watching them

nice start to the day

[Wormius]

This is one of the many reasons I like to keep the bedroom blinds open at night. Nice view to fall asleep to. It got even more intense after midnight.

[Sainters7]

I love living downtown, but this is definitely one of the drawbacks. I haven't seen a thing all week, even through my camera, and I've been looking. So thanks for sharing, for us living in light pollution HQ!

[OutOfTheCube]

I'm convinced now this is one of those things that cameras have made look way cooler than it actually is. Outside on our deck we said "Oh huh, you can kinda see them, that's neat" -- so I pull out my iPhone with the long exposure to grab a photo and boom, it's magnificent. Green and purple and blue and filling the whole night sky. Then you look again with your crappy human eyeballs and are like... "dang, not nearly as cool".

[photon]

You can see them that nice with the naked eye, but you have to be somewhere really dark and they have to be really strong.

Go north!

[Inglewood Jack]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I'm convinced now this is one of those things that cameras have made look way cooler than it actually is. Outside on our deck we said "Oh huh, you can kinda see them, that's neat" -- so I pull out my iPhone with the long exposure to grab a photo and boom, it's magnificent. Green and purple and blue and filling the whole night sky. Then you look again with your crappy human eyeballs and are like... "dang, not nearly as cool".

I was still able to look up in wonder at the mute reality of those dancing curtains, but yes some of the pics people are posting look like a goddamn cosmic clown climaxed all over the ionosphere

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

I'm convinced now this is one of those things that cameras have made look way cooler than it actually is. Outside on our deck we said "Oh huh, you can kinda see them, that's neat" -- so I pull out my iPhone with the long exposure to grab a photo and boom, it's magnificent. Green and purple and blue and filling the whole night sky. Then you look again with your crappy human eyeballs and are like... "dang, not nearly as cool".

Perhaps. To me it's a little like the childhood wonder of those secret messages written in lemon juice. For some adults, "Oh yeah, that." for kids, it's like magic.

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

I was still able to look up in wonder at the mute reality of those dancing curtains, but yes some of the pics people are posting look like a goddamn cosmic clown climaxed all over the ionosphere

I got pics of it over my house which I felt was cool. Share with family, but didn't post to social media. Everyone else was posting pure northern lights, but sorta boring. I got some shots that kinda looked like those colorful space shots. I thought it was neat.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I got pics of it over my house which I felt was cool. Share with family, but didn't post to social media. Everyone else was posting pure northern lights, but sorta boring. I got some shots that kinda looked like those colorful space shots. I thought it was neat.

Yeah, I got a few pictures while I was flying, but they're pretty poor quality. Calgary reddit page just gets swarmed with every crappy cell phone pic and it's pretty annoying.

I did like this one though

Spoiler!

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

The problem is no one creates an interesting composition to separate it from the swathes of AI over-corrected phone pics out there already from the geomagnetic events this year. Either a nondescript urban balcony or the whole frame of the sky, which makes it even less distinctive or interesting. But I get the excitement to capture the moment. I'd never get tired of watching what we saw yesterday.

[dammage79]

The sensors on cameras can pick up more than our eyes can. It's not some AI trick. Not like the old Samsung can take pictures of the moon scam.

I saw the Reds and purples with my own eyes out here in eastern AB with next to no bortle scale.

Light pollution does affect how much you can see and anywhere within a 15km radius of any city is going to lessen what the naked eye can see.

Like, you cannot likely ever take a video of the Aurora with a phone because it needs two to five seconds to catch enough light because of the sensor size.

Can totally do it with a full blown mirrorless camera though.

[dammage79]

Not for nothing but they also picked up again around 3 a.m except no prism of color, just strong streams of teal/green pulsing across the sky like a stream.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

The problem is no one creates an interesting composition to separate it from the swathes of AI over-corrected phone pics out there already from the geomagnetic events this year. Either a nondescript urban balcony or the whole frame of the sky, which makes it even less distinctive or interesting. But I get the excitement to capture the moment. I'd never get tired of watching what we saw yesterday.

Add "Banff" to your search and you get good stuff. https://www.instagram.com/explore/se...aurora%20banff

I've got even better but it's not model-released yet.

[firebug]

Not northern lights, but a pretty good comet view in the western sky right now. It Will set in about 45 minutes.

[bagofpucks]

Thanks for the heads up! Pretty cool with the naked eye, but I bet it would be great with a telescope.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by firebug

Not northern lights, but a pretty good comet view in the western sky right now. It Will set in about 45 minutes.

For a smaller(2 miles) comet it's pretty bright, to bad comet 29P wouldn't come a little closer because at 45 miles in size that thing would be a show.

For those of you that'll be alive in 2061 Halley(10 miles) returns with promises that it'll be 12X brighter for earthlings than it was in 1986.