[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by fishnguy

As for the mostly green colour, in my experience, the bigger it is and the closer you are to it, the greener it is. Most of the other colours come out at the edges when it “runs” and when the “hole” opens up in the middle of the sky above. That is why most of the photos you see taken somewhere south have some nice pink, purple, whatever colours and pictures from the north all are pretty much green for the most part.

Just wanted to add on the colours. The reason we observe different colours is because they appear different at different heights in the atmosphere. The lowest colours are kind of pink, which the collision of the “flare” with nitrogen, the green is oxygen, and the red and pink above that is also oxygen but at a significantly higher altitude - we are talking hundreds of kilometres here. Higher yet is helium and hydrogen, which produce purple and blue, that are hardly ever observed but can be photographed.

So, beside the fact that most of the auroras tend to occur in the green “oxygen spectrum” (100-300km above the ground), and, hence, aren’t easily observed but at the northern latitudes, it is basically like standing in front a super tall building. Even when there is an epic storm, those of us closer to it, we mostly observe a lot of green and some pink above (and below, depending on the storm) because we cannot clearly see the top of the building. Those more south, on the other hand, cannot see the green part because it is covered by the earth (because it is round, despite that some believe it is flat, lol), rather they see a lot less green than we do here if the storm is as epic as it was a few days ago, but see a lot more pink and red above because the top of the building is pretty clear for them to see. Not exactly the same, but something like that.

There is your “nerd” thing for the night, lol.

Originally Posted by Dewey Cox

I made my kids all come out to look, and they all said "meh" and went back inside. Tough crowd...

Lol. Tough indeed. I was debating whether I should wake my 8-year old up, lol. It’s funny how we take these simple yet amazing things for granted. Some people take weeks worth of vacation in the winter to go to Norway or somewhere else north and hang outside in uncomfortable conditions all night trying to catch a glimpse and take a photo.

This one they said reached all the way to Florida! Something they say that didn't happen for about 2 decades.