BS: seeing the Northern lights

Subject: RE: BS: seeing the Northern lights
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 10:57 PM

I have seen them once.

It was like the end-of-the-world....an appocalypse

Multi-colored, hand-fingers, crossing the northern sky reflected on a northern lake in Maine.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

I count myself amongst the "blessed" have seen them....it goes into the catagory of fall-colors, wood-peckers, and "reading the rapids."

Subject: RE: BS: seeing the Northern lights
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 11:01 PM

I do not believe they are predictable - like an eclipse.

They are more on the order of "grunnion runs" something that MIGHT happen on a given beach, within a given five day window.....it is their ellusivness that genders their value.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

For me it was a "magical experience" and totally unexpected.

Subject: RE: BS: seeing the Northern lights
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 02:17 PM

Gargoyle is right, imo. The 'experts' are good at alerting us to the potential for good viewing after a solar flare, but there are many variables, includng what time of the night - or day!- they will be visible. Interesting to realize that they are also out there in daylight- we just can't see them.

I have heard visitors to Alaska who complain that they were here three weeks and never saw the lights. They tend not to mention that they were indoors every single night, except maybe for 10 minutes each evening while they scanned the sky.

There is no alarm clock that lets us know they are out there.

I remember one time - 11:30 on a really cold night - when I had already dressed for bed and happened to look out the window. I put some warm clothes back on and headed down the hill to a small park where there are no artificial lights. Spent an hour down there before they started fading.

Keep in mind that sometimes they fade, say at 11:00, (although I've often seen them as early as 7:00) but then come back again at say, 2:00 AM)

Not only do the lights shift and move and flare and ebb and change color and intensity but they look almost liquid. Like flame, except nothing is pointed. I love the way they paint the landscape, the trees, the houses, the mountains, the snow.