Transcript:
you don't have to worry about forecast that's true fair it's just what is the
KP one great we're going out know yep and boy when a KP hits two or
three you know you've got big time it's usually pretty good up there we had almost a five and that was quite I mean
was major storm time up there it was a four and a half was the most uh we got
that's fantastic though yeah it it was impress Rive that night I cannot imagine
oh you can imagine you've seen all this 20 times well okay I've seen it in Alaska but I've not seen it where you
were
at how many days were you gone uh it was two weeks uh and 12 on the
water wow that's that's fantastic yeah the fall ought to be good
yeah uh it'll be the first two weeks of October it's not ideal moonwise at all but um that's they had
open right they requested so I just said sure don't blame you a bit Yeah you can
I mean it's just I I've always that's always been my downfall and my strength
maybe too is that I I say yes often and we're very glad you do oh
thanks oh I've got that it illustration sort of coming up similar version
yeah there it is that's great who's putting that up is that you Scott that's NASA yeah I'm put I'm broadcasting it
it's NASA's visualization makes you glad to have a magnetic field doesn't it uh
yeah yeah yeah we like them here on this
planet Eric Rose is watching on YouTube watching from freeze uh
Virginia shout out to the echoridge Astronomical Society and Bob Anderson hello F folks
Bob Anderson here so we got people logging in we're very happy that you're joining us
tonight on this uh Terry is it the 47th astronomical live yes it is okay all
right well let's get this thing let's get this party started all
[Music] [Applause]
right if we think about the menus spere as an orchestra it actually works really
well you have a bunch of different instruments in this Orchestra or this Ensemble you have our magnetic
harp you have have a magnetic Organ
Pipe you have a magnetic
drum and they're all playing at the same time with various loudes and
pitches and they're also just like if you ever go to an orchestra and you you sit there before they start playing
they're tuning up their instruments tuning their instruments at the same
time well hello everyone it's Scott Roberts from explore scientific and the explore Alliance and I am about to bring
um Terry man on to our program she is our host for the
47th Global uh not Global Star Party astronomical League live you're
confused I guess so I guess so hey I got my you know I got my logo over here you
know it's down over here somewhere and uh you did well y so anyways very happy
to be uh and honored to be broadcasting these astronomical League live programs
and and uh uh it's great to uh have all your wonderful guests on um each time
you do these Terry you've uh you keep upping the bar so that's great and you
let people know what's going on with this massive organization called the astronomical league and uh uh you know
so it's wonderful that you're sharing your time and uh and all your knowledge with them uh we were talking backstage I
guess there's a backstage to this uh with your special guest Bob King who's
uh uh you know written written many books on astronomy um but uh you are
both you both share a passion in Aurora and so uh I'm gonna turn it over to you
and let you take it from here thank you thank you Scott and thank you for all
the broadcasting you do all the support for the league I mean you know so many of us have known each other for a long
time and we really tend to help each other out we've got a really great astronomical community and you know it's
growing it's getting bigger but it's like we have extended family all over the place I mean we know so many people
after being involved for so many years and Bob King and Don NAB and deed Levy
and Chuck Allen are just and you are five of the best and it's been a very
honor good honor to know you I know they are but you know I I got a
reputation speaks for itself right yes it does we also have um in our audience
we have Alan Dyer watching on so from YouTube great cheers from Sunny Alberta
Canada I don't know how sunny it is but oh yeah yeah I wish it was sunny here
yeah I hope Allan's got clear skies and all of you out there I hope somebody's got clear skies it's been kind of a
nasty year so far so welcome everybody as you can tell we've all been talking
as as Scott said backstage kind of
enjoying really appreciate it and we hope you always return
and my internet is blinking out every once in a while so excuse me if I lock
up uh and welcome welcome everybody and what I would like to do is I would like
to start off with David Levy and his poetry we can't start a program without
you so how about if I just turn it over to you thank you so much
Terry excuse me okay here we go tonight we're going to get a a
lecture from the King and I'm really excited about that the king of sky and
Telescope Bob King is going to be lecturing us tonight and I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has
to say and Terry what you have to say I wanted to remind everybody that on
the 13th next Thursday night there will be a total eclipse of the moon and um
that's going to be a nice one and uh it should be right sort of later in the
night for the Eastern Time Zone but where I hope to be at Palmar it will be
earlier like around in the middle of the night or earlier even before that anyway
to celebrate the lunar eclipse I'm going to quote from Thomas Hardy and Thomas Hardy I think many of
you know if you've taken any English courses in college at all you will know
that Thomas Hardy is one of the finest writers in the world or was is novels
Tess of the dur derville to the Obscure are absolutely
uh incredible to read and um just the way he flows the English
language but Thomas Hardy also was a poet a very fine
one and the poem I'm going to read for you tonight is based on an eclipse of
the moon he saw from London in 1902 and he wrote it a year later in
1903 I love how the Sonet goes from The Wonder of the Earth's shadow on the moon
to the horror of what can happen here on Earth and I know that for a lot of you
you're going to be connecting what happens then to what happens now but
here we go with Thomas Hardy at a lunar eclipse by Shadow Earth from Pole to
Central sea now steals along the moon's Meek shine in even monochrome and
curving line of imperturbable Serenity how shall I link such Suncast
symmetry with the torn troubl form I know as thine that profile pled as a
brow Divine with conness of moil and misery and K immense mortality but throw
so small a shade and Heaven's High human scheme be hemed within the coast Yan
Arch implies is such the seller gauge of Earthly show
Nation at war with nation brains that team Heroes and women fairer than the
skies Terry thanks to back to you thank you David I appreciate so much you
spending so much of your time with the league and with all of us it's such a pleasure to know you so thank you very
much and from here from here let's go to Chuck Allen
and I don't he really do doesn't need an introduction but I'm going to try anyway two things he is the president of the
astronomical league and he is an amazing Master Observer um he could be the go-to
on any telescope he knows where he's at what he's doing and knows what it looks like he he is it is impressive when you
see the master observers in the astronomical league so Chuck thank you for joining us I will turn this over to
you thank you very much Terry I remember uh speaking of Thomas Hardy had a novel
called far from the Madden crowd which I think is one of the things you think about uh When You observe because that's
about as far from the Madden crowd as you can get um tonight I'd like to share a screen for just a moment if I
may that possible for here we
go okay I want to talk just very briefly about some things that are coming up in
the astronomical League that be of interest to you um and uh one of them is
the ncal convention coming up in Minneapolis uh this will be held on
April 25th through 27th at minetonka Minnesota which is I believe a
Southwestern suburb of Minneapolis St Paul uh at the Marriott there and if
you've never attended an ncal convention they're really fun events they've been holding conventions for just about the
length of time the League's been around and Bob King was a wonderful speaker there last year and hopefully we'll be
there again this year um and also in June from this is about two weeks before
the Bryce Canyon convention you'll have an opportunity to go to the Midstates region 6 six excuse me 75th Anniversary
convention which will be held um at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock
and uh they too are planning something extra special because it is their 75th year of existence as a region of the
astronomical league and I attended their convention last year in Omaha and it was a lot of fun just really tremendous
group of people and then of course we have our convention coming up at Bryce Canyon this is uh from June 25th through
28th we were talking about the opportunity to observe from bordal one Skies you will be uh at a major and
beautiful National Park and near other great national parks in the United States so it's a great vacation
opportunity um and you'll be observing from a place called rainbow point at
over 9,000 FT elevation in bordal one Skies these are as dark as skies get in
the continental United States certainly and uh just a fantastic opportunity to
observe we have a limited room block of 275 rooms and they are going really fast
I'm not saying that to get you to register they are in fact we're approaching capacity on this convention
so if you're planning on going please make your decision soon uh before the room block fills uh it'll be held at
Ruby in uh Ruby in is just a fantastic western style Hotel Best Western uh
hotel with h fantastic pools and restaurants and uh gathering places
meeting rooms and an oldfashioned western town across the street uh that you can visit uh really it's right at
the entrance to Bryce Canyon and very exciting we'll of course have many vendors at these
conventions uh and LOL lion who's organizing our convention at Bryce Canyon has done a fantastic job of
getting vendors this time uh here's Bob speaking at the NC convention just an
example of great speakers that we have at these meetings um and also of course
you'll have an opportunity to meet exciting new people at our conventions uh here a young friend of mine meeting
Harrison Schmidt uh at the convention in Albuquerque a few years ago uh we will
have at all three of the conventions I just mentioned that's the NC convention
in April the uh MSR convention in June and at Bryce Canyon we will have
astrophoto competitions with metals and plaques for winners so please check the websites about the rules and the
categories for each of those competitions I want to say something about our Awards
we have a deadline coming up of March 31st for submission for our many uh
astronomical League awards for the Youth Awards of course we have the national young astronomer award which is now in
its 33rd year this is sponsored with the great generosity of explore
scientific um and the telescope prize that goes to our winner is seen here uh
the year pictured here in b marouge we had two winners uh they both got the telescope prize so we had a fantastic
opportunity to meet two winners at this convention um if you're a high school student doing research in astronomy uh
Nia is for you we also have horim youth Service Awards these are for
astronomical League members uh of high school age uh who engage in public
service either through their clubs or just to the public in general
these two Awards provide almost $3,000 in prize money we also have a horer Parker youth
Imaging award and a horim or Mira journalism award these have $1,000 top
prizes and again the deadlines for all of these Awards uh is coming up on March
31st just go to astr league.org uh and look up awards at the very bottom of the
page and you can find all the information about applying for these we also have General Awards seeing here a
very youngl looking Scott Roberts uh who's been sponsoring the Leslie Peltier
award Peltier award as I think he like to pronounce it uh for observing we have
the Web Master Award of course uh so if you have a club Web Master you want to
recognize please think about nominating that person the Mabel Sterns newsletter award if you have a newsletter editor
you think is deserving please send us a nomination and also we have a sketching Award with cash prizes as well and
finally I'll close by mentioning the williamina Fleming Imaging Awards uh
open to female League members age 19 and over and uh we're not seeking a sponsor
I apologize to Scott this is a sponsored award by explore scientific and I'll
replace this old slide with a new one shortly I apologize for that so that's it uh I'll say no more other than to uh
hope you will join at some of these wonderful conventions that are coming up thanks Terry yep thanks Chuck yeah there
Bryce Canyon is coming along really nicely I have a slide that I'll sh Show if I remember all of the vendors it is
unbelievable the amount of vendors that are showing so and um Chuck wasn't
exaggerating there's only like about 80 to 90 registrations left at this point
and I know for Council if anybody's listening you no longer can get a room in that hotel on on Monday night um all
of the rooms at this point are totally sold out on Monday night um and our council meeting is on Tuesday the
conference does not start until Wednesday so you can still get in Tuesday night so a lot of great things
going on with all the regional uh conventions are really looking forward to the summer we're just
getting ready to start off so all right next let's go to Don NAB uh don is the
chair of the um east region Merill and he has been such a help to the league in
so many places but especially on our websites Don has helped me with the Great Lakes region website with our um
virtual Alcon that we did Don was the one that showed me how to do everything to try to put everything together and
helped me tremendously so don welcome it's a pleasure to have you back again
thanks Derry let me uh share my screen here I'll keep this fairly brief tonight
because I know everyone's looking forward to hearing Bob K's talk so no pressure Bob should be coming
through [Music] now okay you seeing this okay yes okay
so brief highlights of the what's coming up the next couple weeks in the uh the night sky um and I like to always let me just
close this one menu here so I can uh see things better High floating
panel um there we go now I can see my screen
better uh I like to always mention every every time I'm on that the astronomical League provides night sky guides uh John
gos put a lot of effort and putting these together so these are the three for this month the first one is of
course about the upcoming uh lunar eclipse which is on U March 14th same
night of course as the full moon the uh I think this is the maple sugar moon when the trees start to flow maple syrup
uh the other one he put up was about Earth shine which is the beautiful image you see of the the dark
side of the moon when it's at a thin Crescent it's the light shining off of the earth reflecting to the moon and the
third one is of course the standard night sky guide which is more than just a map John includes a walk through the
uh the brightest things in the sky to see and highlights but not highlights so I'm not going to walk us through that
this time we did that last time I was on but uh these are great resources and how do you find them here's the link but let
me show you briefly how to find them go to the league website scroll all the way
down to the bottom and then you find navigating the night sky and this page
has has all these tools and you can share these with anybody and everybody put them on your Facebook page uh league
club members can put them on their in their newsletter on their website anywhere at all free to use totally and
they are they are a valuable resource so before I start the the night sky I do want to share this uh star Trail time
lapse Bill mcin became the regional represented for Merill this past summer
when Alan per retired from that he was and his wife were camping I I think they could say that cabin north of Toronto
and he sent me this image and I just said I got to share this this is such a beautiful image this took uh took him
about four hours with his Canon 6D and uh just an amazing one of the best Star
Trail images that I have ever seen and then he also did a video which is we'll play here briefly
this is also uh you can see the moon setting there in the lower part of the picture and there's the plees and I
believe that's Jupiter there's Mars coming into the scene and uh wasn't long after he finishes there's there's Mars
up top that he got his equipment got snowed in of course was in Canada so it
was winter time so I just wanted to share that beautiful animation beautiful timelapse that he put together so what's
going on in the sky uh lunar highlights tonight tonight after the show you can go out set your scope or binoculars up
and see uh Rupa recta lunar straight wall last night if we had uh been out
you would have seen the lunar X and lunar V but tonight you're down just to the uh lunar straight wall of course in
the middle of the night for where I live at 2:26 a.m. we have a total lunar eclipse not a great shot the only one I
could find in my in my records of uh previous lunar eclipse but we'll have a color approximately like this hard to
predict of course this red red blood color is caused by the refraction of
light going around all the sunsets on the earth sunsets and sun rises um and here's a new one I found
this one one on the Royal Astronomical uh RS roal uh the
Canadian our Royal Astronomical Association of Canada this is called the jeweled handle I had never seen this one
before and actually was lucky enough to find this image in my in my collection
so this is the jeweled handle this is the peaks of the jural mountains and you
get it at just the right time the the Peaks are illuminated and yet the floor
of the Valley of the Bay of bay of rainbows SST idium is still black and
the part of the Moon behind is still black so it looks like if you were big enough you could grab the Moon by a
handle i' had never seen this one before and it was mentioned on the uh the calendar that the uh roal astronomical
League of Canada puts out and um I found this to be an amazing amazing thing this
would be uh Sunday night around 8:00 you can see this it's got to be when the sun
the sunrise on the moon is just right but uh that is the jeweled handle a new one to me um the planets uh tomorrow
night is when Mercury at is furthest position from the Sun very good viewing
and it'll be visible for the next you know several days or week and a half after that but tomorrow night will be
the best time when it's furest from the Sun to see it Venus I'm going to miss Venus it's going to be dropping into the
glow of the Setting Sun as the month progresses and of course that's because
Venus is winning the race see over here Venus is winning the race around the Sun and going to be passing from this part
of the of the orbit to ahead of us in the orbit around the Sun and it'll be in the pedong sky at months end Mars is
still shining bright high in the sky nice red in uh between Castor and POA
making a triangle for Jupiter on the 11th um that would be early next week we
have two moons you can see on the Jupiter's uh face on March 11th Saturn
sadly we're going to miss Saturn is disappearing into the glow of the uh of the Sun by midm mon same thing with Ur
Uranus it's dipping low you can probably catch it the first week or so of March but then it's going to go into the west
by months end and Neptune we really can't see at all this month it's uh it's too close to the Sun or behind the
sun uh there is this partial solar eclipse on March 29th for North America
especially if you live in Northern Quebec for for me where I live 20 mil WS to Philadelphia this is simulation that
I put together with stellarium you can see it's not much of a solar eclipse I
mean this is about as partial as an eclipse gets this will be on the 29th that just before 7 in the morning uh the
sun will just be rising and be very partially obscured by the moon so uh not
not a great one for North America this one but still fun to see you get up in
time now uh deep Sky a couple things to show you in the Deep Sky one of my
favorite I guess everyone has a favorite constellation my favorite one is Leo why do I like Leo well it's because Leo was
the name of a a dear departed friend in the Adam world that we had Leo left us a couple years ago but I'll never forget
him and whenever I see Leo in the sky it reminds me of Leo the cat so one of the
greatest things in the sky to see in Galaxy season is the Leo triplet and that is on Leo's back leg and it's made
up of three galaxies these two are messy objects
number 65 and 66 if I remember correctly the hamburger Galaxy is an NGC number I
don't remember what that is and the faintest of these is the hamburger Galaxy but you can usually get these
three if you have a good uh very uh wide Fielder view telescope you can get all
three in one view if you have good Dark Skies you can see all three at once um it's a nice highlight on the night sky
in in March and April and uh beyond that there's more galaxies to see beneath Leo in the sky
is the mccaran chain now this would be more for advanced observers you probably need a little bigger telescope but
mccaran chain is in this the large Virgo the large group of galaxies and Virgo group in uh K bernes in the
constellation of Virgo and this is what the chain looks like probably can't get all of these in one one field of view
but uh you can certainly scan and go from one side to the other stopping in the middle in the eyes U so
again more for an advanced Observer but uh certainly visible with most telescopes in a dark
site and then uh the last one I'll highlight is the owl nebula and it's beneath the uh the
dippers the Dipper part of the Big Dipper now if you go out and look you're going to find the Dipper is actually the
handle is facing down right now but I had to rearrange the larum bit just to get a better picture of it so there is
the owl nebula and Messi 97 if you if you put your telescope on it it's
probably look sort of like this this is from my sea star you know it's a dim object like many nebulas uh but you can
see you can certainly see it and uh you if we had a very very Advanced telescope and taking a long exposure picture this
is what the Alia looks like so and while you're actually in this part of the sky it would be another great place to look
move your telescope over to to the cigar Galaxy and bodess bodess Galaxy m81 and
M82 so additional maps that are out there you can easily download sky maps.com or just search for whats out
tonight and uh every month these are free uh so in addition to the
astronomical leag guides you can get these two guides every month and it shows you uh the great things to see in
the sky there this actually has a whole second page to it of the events from the sky what's out is a three pager so
download and print for free and beyond that I would just say get out and uh go look at the beautiful night sky it's not
quite as cold as it used to be the nights are still long so March is a great time to look at the
sky and I will stop sharing my screen good there
we go thank you Scott thank you Don it's always great to hear what's up in the night sky because
you bring up different things and what maybe I would think about doing because there's so much up there so thank you so
much for all of that information you that it's really nice to have you here
thank you it's you it's the show that never ends that's true there I mean you can do it year after year and have
different objects there's so much up there to look at it's always something and the go ahead there's always
something to see up there always there is and with the SE star I think we have so many people you know with the little
smart telescopes that you can just go out and set it down and look people that probably have never thought about doing
astrophotography before are now trying it out you know so y fun and the sea
star is very much fun at public Outreach events but you know for me nothing replaces seeing an object in the
eyepiece nothing well I can understand it like the dwarf and the sea star and
all the all these Scopes they're great but there's nothing like looking at with your own two eyes yep I have to agree
I'm looking forward to that myself if the sky is Ever Clear in Ohio right all right thank you Don I
appreciate that uh I am going to share my screen really quickly
here and um see if I can find what there it
is what I'm looking for and here's Don or here's Bob tonight uh and the title
of his talk uh well that's not the title of your talk actually so I'll let you do
that what I wanted to show was next um these are
the uh the rooms will be released on April 20th is what I I was originally
told um and it will the weather should be really excellent there but these are
the different vendors that we have got coming uh that you can see we've got quite a big list um so we we're very
happy to have all the vendors and we thank them too and just to be able to be at Bryce Canyon in those bordal one
Skies is going to be amazing uh these are all the presenters too and you can find all of this on the Alcon website as
Chuck showed you there on the the astronomical League website and let's see and the last one
again is what Chuck went over please consider all these Awards because there are so many awards as as you saw
the Youth Awards the adult Awards I mean there are a lot of awards the deadline
is March 31st at 1159 p.m. please think about nominating somebody or nominate
yourself uh there's so many different things that you can't apply for so with
that what I'm going to do is stop sharing as soon as I can get that button to click back up there there we go I
guess I already am all right now we know Bob King is it Bob Bob has been here
just once or twice I think but I am going to tell you some more about Bob King besides the fact I'm really looking
forward to your talk too so Bob King fell in love with the night sky and astronomy when he was a kid growing up
in Illinois and loves to share his passion with people of all ages he writes for sky and telescope's website
and magazine and maintains the astroo astronomy blog his books night sky with
the naked eye the wonders of the night sky guy you must see before you die
describe the joys of skywatching while urban legends of Space
examin Science versus pseudoscience in astronomy Bob wants to see everything
he's read about in astronomy books with the exception from falling into a black hole now I can understand that one but
Bob you've also written a book on Aurora here lately yes uh there was published uh
last Fall by um the American an Astronomical Society sky and Telescope
basically and it's called Magnificent Aurora and it is about one of the things
I love the most which is the Northern Lights yeah I bet so and I do have that
book and it is an amazing book so Bob with that I am going to go ahead and
turn this over to you so we can hear your talk and uh it sounds like you had
such an exciting time I had a great time Terry and thank thank you very much for
the introduction thank you everyone else here with the astronomical League Chuck Scott and the crew uh it's an honor to
be able to speak once again before the group so I really appreciate that I thank you all uh we'll start as long as
Tera you kind of let in there a little bit with the northern lights and so that's what we'll start with here uh I'm
going to switch over and share my screen
and almost there
go slides and are we at the beginning can
you see a picture yes good all right this uh this was taken out of the deck
of the ship I was uh I took a trip to Norway basically with the road scholar
program it's Road scholar and spent not quite two weeks on board uh a heric root
ship called the MS nordcap the road scholar program which
is now in its 50th year I got connected with them through Alan Dyer in Canada
Allan and I are friends and uh he made that connection for me and I went on my very first trip Allen's been on many and
I also want to thank him this evening because he's provided some of the images that we're going to be seeing that he's
taken also with the road scholar program but basically what's involved is a two-e
trip up the coast of Norway and I was one of the presenters so there's a group
leader we had a group of about 25 people on the ship which carries around 350
folks and I was the person who gave the talks so I gave five lectures mostly
about the northern lights but on other topics as well and then there was a group leader that kind of got people to
places at the right time and with the right transportation it's a wonderful program and it's
dedicated people who take the road scholar trip to Norway are basically doing it because they want to see the
Northern Lights and Norway is one of those for sure places where you're going to see the Northern Lights because the
permanent auroral oval happens to sit right over Northern Norway but even
before I got to Norway I can't sleep on airplanes and so we're flying over just
the Wilds of Labrador and Northern Quebec and uh just south of Greenland
I'm looking out the window thinking you know we're at the right latitude for the northern lights and before too long
little bit of Aurora started to form so I got my camera ready and pressed it against the window and got the pillow in
there and blocked all the reflections but it really turned into kind of a nice northern lights display and you can see
there uh the wing tip of the airplane some rays for me there's even a little bit of color down here you can see some
purple glow from uh excited nitrogen atoms or molecules pardon me and then
some green glow which is caused by oxygen our first point of Landing in
Norway was Beret which is on the west coast of the country towards the southern end of Norway it's sort of
shaped like a giant chicken leg pointed down so Bergen is down here at the fat
part of the chicken leg and our hotel was right over here on the end of this very historic district called brigin and
this is the Harvard District these businesses these homes have been there since about 1702 that's when they were
built but people had built other homes prior to that but it all burned down in
1702 and was rebuilt so we were there for about a
day and here's another famous monument that's also visible not quite as old at
least the business is isn't as old as some that we found in Bergen but this is the McDonald's which is not too far from
brigin and it's in the loveliest building I've ever seen a McDonald's housed
in this is a photograph of the nordc cap uh we had an opportunity to see it pass
under the bridge we took a separate Ferry at one point during the trip so I was able to get a photograph of it and I
can show you on this picture the places where we viewed the northern lights right here on the front of deck five
which faces into the wind very important thing I'll talk more about later as you head north and then right up top here
around the back which is wide open that's the top of the ship that's called deck 7 this is our route uh roughly 1,200
miles up the coast of Norway here we are starting in beran which is right there on the west coast at about latitude 60
degrees north which already puts you pretty far north here where I live in duth we're at 47 degrees north we call
ourselves the Northland it feels like the north but when you get to Europe suddenly North is different you know
you're much further north in general especially if you're in Scandinavia we
started there and then traveled up the coast stopping at various places along the way because the ship the nordcap is
not just a tourist or a cruise ship but it's also used as sort of a ferry for the local people so that they can go
from port to port to port they travel up and down the coast so people there's room for cars on board and so you can
drive your car in uh head up somewhere else pick up the ship again and head back south we went all the way up here
uh furthest North was near hammerfest which was latitude 71 degrees north and
then the farthest east we went was around the top of the country right to the border of the Russian Federation at
a town called Kess well as you head north but you're
well aware we're all if you've ever traveled south you know how your stars change and of course I knew the Stars
would change when I went North but I still wasn't prepared for how dramatic it was for instance this is the view
looking South this time of year this is back in mid-February when I first took
off and then how it looks when you're up in truma Norway at almost latitude 70
degrees Orion just moved horizontally across the sky basically and when we
were farthest north Sirius was only about 2° above the Horizon so it was very weird seeing
Sirius basically gone uh because it was often hidden by distant Mountains and
the same is true with the Dipper when you look North from our latitudes you see the Dipper over here in copia this
time of year it's standing on its handle but up there it took me a little while to get used to seeing the Dipper way
high up not unexpected but signis and Vega along with the constellation lra
they are all circumpolar so I would see them in the evening in the Northwest and they never left the sky so it took some
time getting used to seeing those two constellations as circumpolar groups and that's what happens when you're up at
those high latitudes uh many many stops uh like I said there were roughly 33 34 ports that
we stopped along the way all different times of day and night mostly brief stops at the longer ones we get off the
ship and we go on various land tours this is just a a scene that I captured
as we're departing this one small town you can see the beautiful snow covered fjords the mountains uh over here you
see these little fences those are Avalanche fences to prevent the snow from falling down over homes and
railroads and whatever is there and there's a little bit of Illumination from Twilight in this picture as well as
lights from the city I was a bit surprised up the coast of Norway if you look at a map it looks rugged and Arctic
but there are quite a few lights uh small and larger towns along the coast and so City glows are fairly common
along the way and sometimes you have to wait for the ship to move before you can get a good picture of the Northern
Lights otherwise you get too much City glow rather like being at home our group was 25 people there were
just a great Bunch uh we met together all the time for meals had a lot to talk
about we shared the Northern Lights experience and lots of other things there's some great folks that I uh sa
andate dinner with and I have to show you at least a couple of the meals
because my gosh they were so delicious this is my favorite dessert that's ice cream there in the center very creamy
very delicious and that's a rice pancake in the middle uh the salmon was just to
melt in your mouth absolutely delicious and this is a slice of r deer steak and
one of the things that they really tried to do is use Local Foods aboard the ship
so reindeer is a very common animal found up there almost like deer in our region and so reindeer was off and on
the menu I felt a little guilty you know about you know facing Santa Claus should that ever happen but I have to say I did
enjoy the reindeer there's Ling on berries there's Cloud berries there's all these things that you find in the
north and they were used for the preparation of the food um as far as seeing the aora what was
great uh was that the crew would alert you to the northern lights but not
always if I remember two nights I was just sitting down to dinner or just right in the middle of dinner it's like
the crew would like to alert you that the northern lights is out right now like oh so of course I left one night I
left a beautiful dinner just sitting there on the table so we could go out and see the lights uh however they
didn't always alert you especially if it wasn't a bright display and so our group
uh formed a WhatsApp group uh called under the stars and so we would alert
one another I usually would post an aurora forecast and then alert people
when there was northern lights so I would go up after dinner on one of those decks deck five or seven look up
Northern Lights and be sure I I messaged everybody and then before long people
would start trickling up to the decks and looking at the Northern Lights of course that was our pants on
moment people enjoyed the pants on any Aurora Watcher is familiar with this expression when you hear pants on it
means hey get up there get out there time to look at the Northern Lights uh
this is a photograph from Allen and you can see what it looks like under that Sky the Big Dipper is visible there off
to the middle left and sometimes the lights were left on as you see down here normally this was off and people would
go out
this one fellow decided to for extra stability to just get on his back and also because when the Aurora really got
cooking up there it was an all Sky Affair and so you could just lie down and your best pictures were what was
happening almost exactly overhead you can see a little bit of green AAR there in the upper right uh during the 12 days
that we were on the water our group saw some form of northern lights whether it was a poor display mostly hidden by
clouds were a really great one we saw it on nine nights so it was a very rich and
very rewarding experience being there in case you have not photographed
the Aurora with one of your phones whether it's an iPhone or a Samsung very easy to do the phone is
actually better in some ways than the digital cambera because when you take a Time exposure and it typically will
default to 3 seconds it Stacks multiple very short exposure images one on top of
the other and eliminates the vibration it also preserves detail in the
landscape the ship is always moving so if you take a Time exposure of 3 seconds
your lands landcape is going to be a little bit blurred so you just aim the phone at the Aurora you hold steady
crosses appear keep those cross the center 3 second exposure you're good to
go and so most people like I say did use cell phones uh the best phone hands down
that people were talking about including the Galaxy phone users was the iPhone 16
and Kristen who was one of uh in our group uh she used an iPhone 16 and she
shot this very lovely photo of a beautiful northern lights display including some of the foreground
too as far as cameras like the one that I brought I I used a Canon R six
mirrorless camera wonderful great you get a bright image in your viewfinder helps you to compose your picture at
night and so I ended up taking just tons of very short exposures again the ship
is pitching around there's also winds sometimes I was able to time it so that
when the ship was at the bottom of a wave before it was ready to head back up
I hit the camera exposure and then caught that relatively quiet steady interval and then on the other side too
I found that you have to have at least an f2.8 lens a fast lens when you're
there and have no fear whatsoever of using High isos rack up that sensitivity
I think my minimum was maybe 1,600 but I typically shot around 3200 one it was
insane outside so I had to go up to 20,000 with exposures of two seconds if
you have an F2 lens which opens another stop wider all the
better now early on we were at the lower quote lower latitude 60 to 63 64 degrees
and from these lower latitudes the Northern Lights resembles what you would see in the northern part of the US so we
get kind of a ray type display with arcs a familiar kind of what I call a
horizontal display of the northern lights but as we move further north once
we got to around 65 and then north of there the ship was actually under when
I'm going to show you a few slides from now it was under something called The auroral Oval which is a permanent
auroral fixture that's up there in the atmosphere starting at around 65 mil
altitude and going up to a couple of hundred miles high and that Aurora
because you're right underneath it you see it from a different perspective we call it the polar Aurora and it looks
different from what I would see here in the Midwest typically of course heading north there
were certain important places uh that were all anticipated Crossing one of
them was the Arctic Circle at Latitude 665 degrees north and from here at
certain times of the year you get to see the Midnight Sun not in February though of course and when we crossed the circle
they actually had on a tiny Island there was a globe a marker you can see it in this Photograph the island of vicking
and and that was hooray we all made it up to the Arctic Circle but there was more there was also a ritual that was
performed on board called the arctic circle ceremony you could participate in and I did and a bunch of other people
did too what they did was the uh they pull your jacket back and take a ladle
of water ice cold water with ice and dump it right down your spine oh my God
it was so cold I couldn't believe it I went to I went back to my cabin I took
off my jacket it just all this snow fell down on the floor it was crazy but it
was a wonderful initiation into the Arctic whereas our heart's desire was to
see the Northern Lights and you probably already know that the Aurora essentially
all comes from the sun is due to things that happen on the sun our nearest star
okay sun is 93 million miles away it's really hot it's so hot that the gases on
the surface of the Sun boil off into the space and they're not even neutral gases they are not made of neutral atoms it's
so hot there that those atoms of hydrogen are broken apart into subatomic
particles are broken apart to protons and electrons and this forms not only
the corona around the Sun that we see during a total solar eclipse that beautiful pearly glow around the
blackened moon but it also forms the solar wind this continuous stream of
particles and since it's um charge particles it's actually called plasma
it's not normal matter but it's called plasma it conducts electricity creates
magnetic fields it's a little bit different from the matter like what your computer is made out of anyway this
material forms the sun's Corona and creates the sun's magnetic field which you can see here is these beautiful
broad pedals and then these tight little Loops are over Sunspot loops and here is
where the magnetic energy of the sun is more greatly concentrated so you see the corona the streaming solar
and then these tightly Loops over Sunspot regions and it all resembles just a bar maget I mean if you've ever
played with a bar magnet and iron fence the resemblance of that to what we
see at the sun with its magnetic field is very much one to one now the Earth
also has a magnetic field thank goodness because it creates this protective bubble of magnetism around our planet
called the magnetosphere here again we have the mag magnet with iron filings the Earth behaves as if there was a
giant bar magnet in its core and you see the same whls of magnetic field around
it I suppose if you went out in space with enough iron filings you could see the Earth's magnetic field with your own
eyes uh notice something interesting about our magnetic field the Magnetic North Pole is actually down in
Antarctica our field comes out of the out of the magnetic north which is in
Antarctica and it points upward curls around South pardon me to the South and
re-enters uh in the polar regions here and a way to remember this is that your
compass needle points to the magnetic South Pole so it North on your needle is
pointing to South this is a representation of Earth's magnetic field
in space and you can again see how similar it is to the field around
something just as basic as a bar magnet here is our Earth we're going to
take a look at how the solar wind pushes against it it is it is some crazy
weather happening out there We complain about the wind here on the ground well this uh little bit of a video is going
to give you a feel for how Earth's magnetic field is buffeted by the solar
wind so we start the animation and you going see the it's
it's almost like a wind sock you can see the sun's the solar wind pushing against
and flexing that field and stretching it and it's imparting energy into the
magnetic field of the earth there's the magnetic field lines as you saw previously what's interesting about this
is that even if there are no solar storms that continuous stream and
fluctuating speed and energy in the solar wind can squeeze and stretch but
it's magn magnetic field in ways that can give us the Aurora Borealis even
without a solar storm but if you want a big one the ones that you're like pants on you got to get out there those have
several different sources one of the main ones are flares and these are places on the sun usually near or within
Sunspot regions where North and South magnetic fields reconnect explosively
and produce this blast that ejects part of the sun's atmosphere out into space
again that's charge particles right electrons and protons and if we're lucky it will blast in Earth's Direction a
typical flare is you can see it in the telescope as a brightening you can
actually watch it live brighter and fainter but when you see a flare like that through a telescope you're actually
witnessing something that's so powerful it's equal to as I've got there 100
Megaton hydrogen by million millions of hydrogen bombs just a spectacular amount
and it's a good thing the sun is as far away as it is another source of materials streaming
from the Sun that can hit us at high speed similar to one of these coronal
mass ejections that occasionally happen with flares are coronal holes these are
open areas in the sun's Corona where the magnetic uh the field is wide open and
particles just stream straight out into space from the Sun and if you have one of these holes
positioned aimed at the Earth then that highspeed stream of material can also
squeeze and cause reconnection as we'll see in in in just a moment caus Aurora
Borealis here down on the earth and all kinds of interesting geomagnetic storm
activities so there's the sun on the left we have a coronal mass ejection blast typical speed of the solar wind is
about a million miles an hour but during a blast like this it can go up to 7 million that is a lot of power we have
our defense up and ready we've got elbows out so to speak and that elbows
out is our magnetic field which is shaped by the sun and it interacts with
the sun we call it the magnetosphere and you can see it there lined up in
blue now when the sun sends a blast towards us it also bundles it with the
sun's magnetic field it's not a neutral thing there's North and South within
that blast it is sort of a magnetized cloud of charged
particles when the magnetic field in
that cloud happens to be pointing South as you see here it connects and couples
with Earth's north pointing field Just the Way North and South poles of a magnet snap together and when those two
things snap together the field line and that material gets blown back it it
connects here you'll see a connect there and it gets blown by the
solar wind behind the planet until it pinches together North and South meet
again and it just blasts the material back towards the Earth towards the night
side of the earth into the upper atmosphere cites the atoms and that's what causes the Northern Lights you're
going to take a little closer look in this illustration which shows you the full process material on the left there's
Earth's magnetic field we're connecting now now we're pinching on the right on
the night side and then the fun begins and that material that you see
that energy is streaming into the polar regions and that's why we see the Aurora
in the polar regions not directly at the North Poles not the geographic poles but around these oval areas let's take a
look at what that looks like here's the Earth there's the electrons in this
diagram it just shows the electrons but there's also protons streaming in but the electrons are primarily responsible
for the northern lights that we can see visually right there's proton Aurora too
so these things are streaming in and they are striking the atmosphere at this incredible speed of 44 million miles an
hour give or take and that is enough energy to excite the atoms there to
Glow here's the southern oval there are two ovals there's one on the top the northern and this one down on the bottom
over Antarctica this is the Southern oal and you can see it there kind of flashing flickering away as that
material from the sun gets funneled down into the polar regions if you're ever
looking for an analogy how do I explain the auror to someone that doesn't know anything about the IR well as long as
they know what an old computer monitor looks like you can just tell them it's kind of like that you've got a source
here which is an electron beam and that beam is passing through a vacuum and
it's striking a a screen that's coated with a certain kind of a fluorescent
material and when the electrons hit the screen it makes a screen glow and that's what's happening really in the sense
with our atmosphere we have these electrons strike breing the atmosphere and then making the air
glow and the air glows in these great colors uh way high up in the atmosphere
and then a little further down when the electrons strike oxygen atoms they give
off red light they get excited their energy increases and then to get rid of that energy they return to their rest
States and emit red light further down around 100 to 70 70 miles high
electrons hit oxygen atoms again and they give off green light so the primary
colors of the Northern Lights most of us see are green and red red is more
difficult because it's our eyes are less sensitive to it whereas green is much easier to see because our eyes are most
sensitive to Green Light further down yet we have nitrogen right down here
really energetic electrons can go all the way down to near the maybe 60 M high
that low and strike nitrogen molecules and they will glow purple and so
sometimes you'll see this beautiful plum colored Edge to the Northern Lights that's from
nitrogen here's a kind of a view of the northern oval you can see where should I go where are good places to see the
Northern Lights I want to be underneath that beautiful green Bagel well these
are the places to have you can go to Fairbanks Alaska is right up there by the oval Churchill Manitoba great place
for doing the northern lights rovic and Trum So any of the Cities any area that
is located close to or underneath that ring that donut will see Northern Lights
most nights of the year when it's clear okay not in the summertime right because you're so far north you're getting
Twilight and Midnight Sun effects but otherwise pretty much guaranteed that you're going to see it
here we are looking down over the poles in quiet times there are when
there are no solar storms the ovals are still present but they contract down to
kind of a small circle you can see here the northern oval notice that it still
goes through Northern Norway and it passes near Fairbanks and those other areas that we talked about so even when
there's no storm the oval is constantly alive there's always material being fed
there into the upper atmosphere however little to create that glowing rain and the same is true on the right in the
southern hemisphere this is a satellite view of
just a small section of the oval and you can see this is over Hudson Bay Canada
in the northern provinces just look at that Aurora wow that's why you go north
into Alaska in Norway so that you can put yourself underneath there and it just rages all night
long during a solar storm okay when we do get that CM we got a big coronal hole
blowing our way the uh ovals expand they expand equatorward so in the northern
hemisphere that means they're expand it's expanding to the South and as it expands The oval's Edge nudges into
close to or into the United States and that's why we can see at Mid latitudes
the Northern Lights when we have some good solar storming happening because the oval is energized now there's a lot
more material going into it and it becomes more
expansive one way we measure the magnitude of these storms impacting our
upper atmosphere in our magnetic field is by using a measure called the KP in
index uh K means it's a German word it go it it just means a specific number
numbering and P is planetary so it's KP index and it measures the magnitude of
the storms it can range from nothing all the way up to nine we had an extreme
storm back in May of 2024 that just lit up the sky and I believe it was another
kp9 that we had in October of last year so here during a kp3 the lower number
it's kind of a quiet you know you don't get much Aurora but as it wraps up the storm wraps up that number
increases a typical storm here in my neck of the woods in the duth area would be a kp5 which is also called a minor
storm and in a kp5 the oval expands Southward just enough so that it Paints
the Aurora in the northern half of the sky for my region so I'll look up and
I'll see these arcs and I'll see these curtains here's an example this is a space shot once again where you can see
the edge of the auroral oval here's duth and it's not over duth but it's off
the distance so I'm looking at it horizontally kind of from the side and
when you do that from this perspective in the Midwest and you look at the Aurora it's kind of a a broadside view
of the edge of the oval and so we often see rays and arcs but not so often where
you get these giant forms at the top of the sky here's another example beautiful
we get beautiful colors too look at the oxygen there look at the green showing up and the red also the Blue by the way
is from nitrogen we had the same thing in Norway we had low Aurora in the northern sky
early on in the trip that resembled what you might see in the midwest there was another examp example that is one long
beautiful Arc and another example this is on the last night of our trip more familiar
type forms but I really wanted to see the polar Aurora and I was not
disappointed because we had several nights when we were up there beneath the oval here's a picture of the oval over
Norway this was on the night of the 20th of February and you can see it cutting
all the way across Finland upper Sweden and so on there it is so that's that's
where you gotta go so here's the ship uh once we got under the oval
that's the Lord cap the ship the Aurora's appearance definitely changed from what I was used
to the first great night was the was this giant dead man's hand in the sky I
mean I just looked up and I saw these big like somebody took paints and just smear like a kid just smear weird this
pale green paints across the sky in the form of a giant hand I mean to get these
pictures I can't even convey the size of this because this was taken with a lens
a type of fisheye that has a field of view of 180 degrees so basically from Eastern to Western Horizon this was
massive and then there were these incredible cork screws these whirls that
would begin at The Horizon and then they would
unwiring shapes and then come back down on the other end of the sky one at one
point I've seeing all these birds I like what does that look like and it reminded me of uh if you've ever heard of MC eer
he was a graphic artist and he had the interlocking fingers and I thought MC eer should be here to see this he would
love it this I've seen edging on an aurora
before but I've never seen so many multiple ripples like this in the
northern lights so it was just a unique site here you can see the land notice
the land here the mountains are blurred because we are moving all right there's special things you have to take care of
on a ship know like I say high ISO wide lenses and then I
mean you know you lean back your neck of course some of the people were complaining about sore necks but they
weren't really complaining but there's just these vast Sky filling greenish
diffused glows and they would develop ripples along the edge and then you
would just wait and think something's going to blow and occasionally it would just blow it would turn into this
brilliant display and then 10 minutes later this is what surprised me it would
be incredibly bright and active disappear practically after 10 minutes and I thought wow is this going to be
the end and then it would come right back you'd see a little curl in the East
and then before long it would unravel and it would start all over again it was this rapidity from Big display to Big
display to Big display that I hadn't seen so often Here in My Little Neck of the Woods there's another view again I'm
using a lens that covers so much in the sky just to give you a view as you'd see it on the ship because it did Cover so
much of the sky look at that ribbon good Lord everybody was just kind of
shouting there's there's Orion there and there's his belt and down here you can see some of the light pollution that I
mentioned sometimes uh it added to the photograph sometimes not and then many
curtains all across the sky know just you're underneath these moving curtains
gorgeous gorgeous uh this was a really brilliant display of the Northern Lights I think the
exposure here couldn't have been more than one second and you can see quite the intense green and also that purple
color that you get from nitrogen down there at the bottom really it's like lightning almost it was very brilliant
but very brief uh here's another one of my favorite forms the giant amoeba like
shapes that you see these multiple swirls this is a form I don't see where I live so it was great ring underneath
the oval just to have that well not the bird's eye view but I guess the worms eye view of the northern
lights and then this is a snowstorm we would be out
and there would we'd suddenly just hit a snow squall and and that would be it the
game would be over show is over but we learned that these things only lasted 10 or 15 minutes so we go in and have
something to drink and sit and talk and then somebody pop their head out and go like clear again the Aurora is out so I
figured I better take a picture of what it looked like that snow driving through uh just a scene more Aurora
there were quite a few nice when was partly cloudy and so you had to shoot through the clouds and sometimes to good
effect uh I often tell people never stop photographing if you see clouds stick with it you can get some very dramatic
imagery when that happens uh later on in the trip we had this very bicycle like northern lights
display up at the front of the ship is really gorgeous down here you can see Jupiter and there's the
pleades and this is a coronal display where the Rays all peaked near the top
of the sky the Big Dipper was up there here's the handle and here is the
bucket and this was I don't know what to say anymore I'm running out of
adjectives somebody help me this is really a bright display and in this case it was nice having the lights
along the bottom from the bridge because it sort of parallels the lights a little
bit and so you have these opportunities when you're on this moving vessel to compose images that include the
landscape which is Ever Changing finally when we got back down
south towards the end I'm sorry I put the final night the 14th I meant the
24th pardon that uh notice that the Northern Lights looks a little more
familiar with the bright parallel rays that particular end of the Aurora slowly
developed into this very beautiful crown oh my gosh it was like you just watch
this happen I think this night I took the fewest number of photographs I just sort of leaned on the edge of the ship
it wasn't too windy and I just soaked it all up and it just felt great
I I've got some extra electrons that I brought back so when you're in the oval area you
you just don't need a very active oval it can look like nothing on a map and by the way all of these oval images are
courtesy of uh Noah the space weather forecasting Center in Colorado and
they're available to anybody anytime so you don't need an active oal which means
you don't need a high KP index to see the Northern Lights matter of fact it got got to the
point of I basically told people well they would say do you think we'll see the Northern Lights and then they go
absolutely we'll see the Northern Lights so what's the KP I said well doesn't really matter what the KP index is if
it's one that's fine if it's three it's going to be really good so I had to
adjust my expectations from hoping to see it when it hit five six and seven to
knowing I see it when it was one two and three funny thing about the oval if is
if you get a really big storm other words you get a high KP number the oval
can expand so far to the South that it's you won't even see the Northern Lights
from where the oval normally is at you might see it way down in the southern
sky so a low number is great when you're up under the oal oh
sorry oh I'm looking for my stoer
there um I just wanted to share a few of the sites and places that to me were
wonderful I had a great time at uh this is elen Christina oscal she was in the
town of Buddha that's how you pronounce it and it's spelled Bodo but Buddha way
up the coast of Norway and one of our excursions we went to visit her she is u
a Sami person uh so she is a reindeer herder basically she's in a reindeer
herting family the Sami were kind of the Aboriginal people before the Europeans
were even there the Sni were up there their whole all their lives are built around hurting reindeer uh and uh it's
just built around reindeer and that's Angel the reindeer and of course everybody loved pet Angel she was very
sweet but I learned something really fascinating from elen and it was a new word and it's called a yo maybe some of
you have heard of a yo she shared her yo with us and what it is it was a spoken
word type of a song that is about you identifies you and your family Origins
so you would sing speak your yo to someone and they would be ah I
understand something about your personality and your background and where you're from so she she's saying us
her yo and I thought I've got to get a yo I've got to come up with some way to
describe myself in this Spoken Word Song it was a very beautiful thing to hear and I don't have a recording of her yo
but I do have one that I picked up from an old recording from the 1950s I'll play just a little bit of it for you
[Music]
[Music] so she's saying us her Y and she's saying us her sister's Y and I could
tell the difference in personality right away it was really fun another place we stopped at was the northernmost point of
Norway it's called North Cape they've got a globe Monument there I think the Norwegians really like these Globes you
know they're right at the top of the globe uh that was a 71.2 de North uh it
has been a tourist location for at least a couple of centuries uh before there was a road there people would actually
go up the thousand foot walk to or thousand foot elevation change to the
top of this so there's a great museum as well when you're up there and a
wonderful place to visit and being the furthest North Point one of the things
that I thoroughly enjoyed especially here was the fact that at noon the sun
was only about 9° high so you have this very low sun
and your pastel light very soft there's clouds moving about and I call it the
polar light it was one of the most beautiful Lights I've ever seen this low Sun all day and then early sunsets
obviously so they were gorgeous pastels and this was taken there at that
location I also enjoyed the kick sleds I saw a few people on these and I thought you know what we could use these in duth
I could see a good use you could just go shopping put your stuff in the basket and then kick your way up the street
like that very convenient because there's always I notic that you always leave a certain amount of snow on the
street it was never scraped down to the asphalt I don't know why maybe it just
it snows there all the time not too deep but there's always snow about uh this is a view take from a
Hilltop uh near the northernmost point in a town called hammerfest you have
this Antarctic landscape and you think oh my God it looks so forbidding but the whole area is warmed by the Gulf Stream
so your average temperature in February the average high was like 32 34 degrees and at night might go down to 25 if so
it's mild and it's snowy uh it's just plain
gorgeous uh we did other things uh were able to enter this little church and
they gave a wonderful concert these three musicians m is in truma in truma I
also CrossCountry skied I love skiing and I had that opportunity so the instructor said go as far as you want do
what you want so I did um also you can buy souvenirs people
were buying Norwegian sweaters but wouldn't you know I came across the Aurora soap and I am somewhat skeptical
that it was actually made under the Northern Lights I mean
perhaps I mean it does happen all the time but they'd have to work late I think to do that so you can see kind of
the colors of the soap which is blue and green and it's swirly
too and I have one final slide and then if there are any questions I'd be happy
to answer but um one final slide during the brightest Aurora
I thought I've never done this before I pulled out my cell phone I Saidi think
something's going to happen so I took my phone the phones aren't great for live shots of the northern lights but this
thing actually did start to Sparkle So if you're in a room it's not real bright but you could dim the lights down it'll
look that much better but I want you to listen to the reaction of the crowd as
this Aurora unfolds and I'm just taking my Fone phone and panning along this all
right so here we go
whoa look at the
[Music] pink wow
wow oh God look at
that so just I mean you know how it is when
you you know you have expectations for the northern lights but it can just overwhelm you and that particular night
I think where you heard the reaction of the people just overwhelmed us which like a total solar eclipse in a way the
emotional wave that went through the crowd kind of brought us all together as one Spirit as well and I love when that
happens uh with a group of people I don't even know so that was one of the wonderful things that happened on that a
trip of Many Wonders thank you very
much well thank you Bob that was really interesting um so many it's it's amazing
to me because the pictures I don't care what we do the pictures cannot catch
that feeling just like what you videoed there at the end the energy that happens
when that goes coronal and it moves so fast yeah it just oh it's amazing and
and you know with it being solar Max this is a time to really consider the next two three years head north head as
far north as you can sometime if you have not seen it a lot of us have seen it you know here locally in our
backyards and we are lucky to see that but as Bob said what the farther north you can get the more spectacular it can
be and the the thing about going north like to Fairbanks Norway Northwest
Territories wherever um is that you have a guarantee of the Northern Lights I
know that I'll see them in duth now and again but when people ask I say well I
can't really predict so I say get under the oval it's like you're blanky you
know you're Northern you get underneath that hopeful and ches are good you're going to see some Aurora
definitely uh anybody got any questions just uh you had a nice
audience um watching and um uh some
people I think uh tuning in a little late here but uh you'll be able to watch
this of course and rerun uh if you're catching just the tail end of this
um and uh it's always a pleasure to have Bob King and Terry man uh here with all
the rest of the team uh from the astronomical league as well uh David
Levy president Chuck Allen and you know Don NAB um all of these people are often
on global star party as well and uh so it's just uh it's great and no I don't
see questions but um I I have a question for you Bob and
Terry how has
um how do you think that the sense of uh awe
and uh just that the spectacular confrontation of this force
of nature how do you think that affects you and and people in
general well it uh it
it's sort of a release of emotion for a lot of us I think it Taps into some of
the stuff we hold inside and when you see it you just
start yeah leaking emot you know you just that's a good you want to cry and
that release emotion especially if it's happening with everyone around you the
force of it is is powerful and uh transforming so yeah and you
don't know when that's going to happen necessarily and sometimes you think oh you'd rather be alone watching the Northern Lights boy was I glad I wasn't
alone that night because uh the people just Amplified the experience it's shared it's shared experience is what it
comes down to for me and the more of that the better I think for all of us
Terry I agree what do you think I think your brain hits overload because you
know it's Aurora you know there's going to be light Dancing in the Sky but when you actually see this it is like your
jaw will drop because you you can't really imagine it until you see it like
that and then you know I stood there and if I would not have heard somebody say
somebody yelled it's GNA go coronal the first time I did not have time to move
my camera all I did was look up and I didn't move until it was done
it really it it catches you off guard yeah it is beautiful it is fast when
it's overhead it can be fast but it it's hard to even explain it because your
brain just doesn't quite grasp what's going on until you see it a few times and then you you begin to predict a
little bit when you can when you can yeah but it's but the Aurora that's why
I always keep looking at the Northern Lights I go out for just about any display because I always fig there's
something new going to be in whatever it is that I've never seen before and then sometimes you get a real treat like when
that happens uh but it's the of course the most important thing we all know the Cardinal thing is be present you know
put yourself in a place where this can happen if this is an experience that you want and uh don't worry about the if you
can I know it can be hard but you know set aside money if this is an experience you'd like to have and just sort of
stockpile it over time and go ahead and make that trip I don't think you'll be disappointed people make Eclipse trips
all the time total solar eclipse this is like this is the equivalent to me of a total solar eclipse that kind of an
aurora experience they're they're identical you know in terms of their emotional depth uh very much the same
very cool very cool yeah um let's see uh a couple of questions
here Eric Rose watching on YouTube asks would it be a
kp9 since we could see the aurora a while back in the in Southwest
Virginia um if yes it would definitely be one of those higher numbers for sure
uh I think you could probably see in Aurora in Virginia even at maybe kp8 but
at kp9 Aurora was recorded during a couple of those big storms we had last year and
the prior year they recorded Aurora and saw it as far as Southern California
Texas Florida Alabama so absolutely and those were kp8 kp9 n plus events
wow um final question this is Alan Dyer from watching on YouTube and he says
this is for you Bob did the displays in Norway match or did they exceed anything
you'd seen into Del Luth area on a good night oh that's quite a good question um
Alan um the I would say it was a different
intense display but I have seen equally intense displays in duth particularly
coronal auroras that have just pulsated and flashed for an
hour but the Aurora in Norway was sort of larger looking to me
different forms but no I would say I've seen equal in Toth put it
simply just different I have h two memories of of
Northern Lights and I live well in the auroral oval in Southern Arizona at 31.9
De and uh I've seen a number of displays from here and of course whenever the Aurora
is here it's just wonderful to look at almost as an old friend but I remember
two specific displays my first one July the 8th
1966 I was at the ader de science camp setting up my telescope and I was Comet
hunting back then but that was the night I forgot all about telescopes and
hunting because the the night sky just blazed with
Northern Lights and it really was a wonderful display and the other one was
here in Arizona when I was enjoying the display and pointing it out and noticing
that Wendy and I noticed that the crowd that was left there from a star party
started walking toward the north as if we were physically reaching out to the
Northern Lights and it was just just wonderful to see and wonderful lecture
thank you Bob oh thank thank you I have to I have to add that of this entire
group I'm probably the only one who ever got pulled over by an aurora um I think
I've told Terry about this I was driving in Indiana to give a talk one night in
the winter and uh I suddenly noticed that there were red lights all over my
driver side window and I figured it was a fire TR or or something like that emergency vehicle or some kind and I
pulled over and there were no vehicles so I I lowered the window and it was
still red so it was quite a dramatic display that night to the north well
that is that's something Chuck because red displays are fairly uncommon um but
both of the major ones I've seen here in Louisville or near here have been just solid red the north both well that does
make sense in a way too the if you live in the southern us you will see more red
displays than we do in the North and the reason for that is that being South you
see just the uppermost part light which is the red part whereas if you go
further north you see the red and the green and interestingly in Norway under
the oval when you looked up it was primarily green that was almost I only
saw one red ray the whole time and that was more towards the southern the end of the trip uh and then there's that purple
Fringe that you get but um yeah it was mostly green and not that I know this as
a fact but I hypothesize I've talked to some people about this when you go
farther north looking from the bottom up the red rays are up and hidden sort of
so you don't actually see the Rays that's why you get more green whereas if you're were you're at or me with the
horizontal broadside view we do get to see more red rays but yeah that's a
great story okay all right I have one question
Bob you and I were talking about forecasting let's say when you're home what is it that you look what gauge do
you gauge what the Aurora might be like do you use the bz do you use the KP what
or the density what do you look at first that will make you go outside to see if
the Aurora is there uh well I you know I always get the the free forecast from
Noah you know you can just sign up for that at the space weather prediction center you get the free email so and
it's always updated so I'll check every one of those especially in the evening and I go oh okay they they're
forecasting such and such a KP so that alerts me early on I should pay
attention but my main one that I use is the bz which is as you saw in that one
diagram is the direction of the solar of the magnetic field that's coming in with that bundle of particles and if that bz
is south and on the graph you can see if it's South if it's South and it's deeply
South I know we're going to see the Northern Lights that's my number one and for those who aren't familiar with the
bz it is a live graphic that you can find it's called the realtime solar wind
just type that into Google realtime solar wind and it's the data coming from
the ace and also the Discover satellites that are 1 million miles in front of the
earth between us and the Sun so as the wind hits them it hits them first and
they sense and measure the wind and send that data live to that website so you're
seeing the live data stream coming from the satellites then it takes another 50
minutes or so for that cloud of particles to actually make it to the Earth wrap around the back and then
slingshot into the polar regions that wild so it is it's great that's what I
use Terry is mostly bz that that's the shest thing for me is just using looking
at the red squiggly line on that realtime solar wind graphic how about you I I'm like you I always look at the
KP but I don't judge by the KP I I'll go to the easy uh because one thing I
always look at it's negative um I want it to be down there as low I also look at density I look at a little bit of
everything to try to make the overall picture but if I have any doubt I just go outside and start looking just to
make sure you know and then watch everything come in yeah the density of the solar wind makes a difference too
there's more particles everything kind of yeah the same page has all those
graphics and one of them is the speed of the solar wind and if you see the you know it suddenly peek up like this so
that's a good sign too and then I and I'll go out and I'll look just like you
I've got a lot of trees here though and so I can look down the road and I have a slot this wide of the northern sky and
I'll bring my camera out and photograph that slot and if I get green in there yeah I'm good to go then I get in the
car yeah I think that's really great advice right there if you have any doubt Point your camera take a 10-second shot and
it's probably going to tell you something's there yeah if you see if you see yellow if you see orange white
you're not seeing the northern lights but if you see green it's it really is a great sign that it might be worth your
while to get out a little north of where you're at to where you can get a better view of the northern lights and of
course finding a place having your Northern Light spot where you live is important and I always uh suggest that
people use a light pollution map doino there's a website that shows a
detailed map of wherever you live where the lights are really bad and where the
sky is darker and you can zoom in it shows the road so you can actually decide hey it's darker over here maybe I
should check this out in the daytime maybe find a spot and then go there at night you know and see the Northern
Lights so it can be a useful tool at light pollution info or light pollution map
need to get a talk sometime and get Allan in on this one too about the SARS about Steve some of the uh odd things
about the Aurora so with that if nobody else has any
questions we always have questions always have questions you know it seems
you answer one it makes you think of another one that's right that's right is a Friday night and and people want to uh
um get home and and start their weekend I think but is this was a great way to
start the weekend so thank you yes well and everybody don't forget the eclipse we've got a total lunar eclipse coming
up uh for me it will be like from 1:00 a.m. to 5 AM roughly on Friday morning
the 14th I believe it's Friday it's the 13th and the 14th yeah yeah it be it's
mostly a morning event for over here too at the Midwest so mostly Eastern yeah
uh so everybody remember that watch that and thank you Bob so much we appreciate
much for having me it was fun to be here you are welcome anytime you want to come all right you can join us anytime all
right thank you all right and I will say thank you to everybody here and thank
you to all the viewers we appreciate you being there I will say because I'm G to
be traveling a little bit and then I'm going to be heading to neif and Chuck Allen will be at neif and Lori anord I
believe will be at NE with us we all three will be at NE so uh that is the
first weekend of April if you go please stop by say hi we'd love to talk to you
and thank you all for being here and Scott thank you for broadcasting it and I will turn it back over to you thank
you so much okay well I just wanted to again thank everyone for tuning in uh it
was great to have such a wonderful guests uh watching live if you are
watching this in replay there's lots of great information here and you might be inspired toh start saving up those
dollars to uh make that trip to go see Aurora Aurora yourself um definitely
want to do that with if it's your first time do it with a group that is uh
familiar with it uh you know and you might check with Terry man um uh before
you go because she can tell you uh you know a lot of great tips and um uh you
know how to not only on how to see that Eclipse um or Aurora but uh uh you know
where where you can go how you can do it safely and uh how you can enjoy it to the maximum
so thank you so much thanks to the league and uh you guys have a great night and we'll see you later keep
looking up thanks Scott objects thank you Scott Kos are icy remnants from the early
solar system located Beyond Neptune there are over 3,000 catalog kbos so far
but scientists estimate there could be hundreds of thousands more each over 10 miles in diameter the largest kbo is the
dwarf planet Pluto while these distant objects typically don't form their own
systems researchers have likely identified a stable Trio of icy space rocks in the Kyper Bel this discovery of
the aljira system made using data from the kek observatory in Hawaii and NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope could Mark only the second three-body system found in the region if confirmed the alturus
system hints at the possibility of more such triple systems awaiting Discovery these formations challenge the idea that
collisions in the crowded kyber belt produce such groups instead they support
the theory that triplets like these form directly through the gravitational colle apps of material in the Solar System's
early disc around 4.5 billion years ago while stars are known to form as pairs
or triples through gravitational collapse researchers are still investigating whether this process
applies to Kyper belt objects the alira system lies 3.7 billion miles away or 44
times the distance between Earth and the Sun only a fraction of a pixel in Hubble's camera separates the two
innermost members studying such distant faint objects orbiting so close together
requires patience and persistence using Hubble and kek scientists observed the
system with data spanning over 17 years this long-term study shows us Hubble's
incredible value to astronomy after more than 30 years in space Hubble can revisit objects days weeks months or
even decades later helping us and cover the mysteries of the universe one observation at a time
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