• Monday-What'sUP July 16 - 04:56 pm

For those of you, like me, that didn't venture out in the wee hours of the morning to catch the Northern Lights shimmering in the sky over the Keweenaw, have no fear... Melanie Hakala Rossi is here with photos from her front row seat at Calumet Waterworks. If you've ever stood under the stars and witnessed the Aurora Borealis in person, you know that the scene is constantly changing with the lights dancing all across the sky. Melanie did a great job capturing the changes in these photos here today. I especially like the last one, with the silhouette of the people against the sky, as it gives you a good perspective of the expanse of lights and how small the people are in comparison. Thanks for staying up to capture these for us all, Melanie!

Great pictures! No man made fireworks can top these spectacular light show!

Very nice...especially the last photo. I wonder what the ancients thought when they saw these displays.

I was wondering how good the "lights" were going to be after another large solar flare came off the sun a couple days ago. From the looks of these photos, I'd say they were spectacular!!! Thanks Melanie for sacrificing yourself with no sleep to capture it. J

Fingers crossed, I hope to get some great shots of the Northern Lights in the coming days while up in Scandinavia, provided the sun sets low enough for it to get dark.....

Beautiful! I've always wondered why they are mostly greenish.

Really nice pictures!!

This should help, Shirley:

Northern Lights Centre.

But, the paragraph you're most likely interested in is below:

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Quote:

The Northern Lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common auroral color, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth. Rare, all-red auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora.

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Cloudy here...no lights. sniff. GLAD you got them Mel!~!!

Thank you, Capt., that's interesting. The only time I've seen them, in N.D., they were like the ones above. Hauntingly beautiful!

has anybody seen the northern lights create, if you will, formations of somekinds? Hope it makes sense....

The photos today are very beautiful. It is most awesome to sit out in the night and watch the lights as they seem to leap and dance across the sky!

Mickill----The shape I've seen often is that of a full pleated curtain or drapery. The loops along the hem even move.

Hi
Mickill mouse, I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but the one time that I was fortunate enough to see some clearly, there were two types of apparent movement. First, there were some in what I call "radar screen green" that appeared to radiate out in all directions from one point. Later, in a location farther north, the movement was a vertical ripple that proceeded along the northern horion--like someone was walking close behind a curtain. They were red and purple-blue in addtion to green at that point.

We were driving up to Cheboygan one October. The first sighting was near Waters and the second sighting I describe was from our beach. The uninterrupted horizon made for spectacular views.

I can't believe I'm as old as I am and I have NEVER seen the northern lights. Is there any way you can save some for me for my trip in September???? Pretty please???? I wish I could have a northern lights alert on my cell phone.

I forgot to mention how beautiful the photos are today. Great job, Melanie!

Do a Google search for "aurora phone app" and you'll get plenty of hits for apps related to auroral effects.

Always consider ourselves fortunate when we see the auras! Each session seems to have it's own personality. The spectacle on the early morning Sunday the 15th exhibited "shimmering", like an electrical short of some kind, that would very quickly, in a fraction of a second, ripple the display from North to South. Lot of short lived "streaks" and "beams" added to the show. Simply amazing!

Thanks Dale! I just found one in the Google Play Store called
Aurora Buddy. It looks like we might have a slight chance
here in Indiana.....a small chance is better than no chance. I
did get to see them in the UP two years ago when I was
there on vacation with my son. We took a nap and went out
to the beach around midnight and were treated to a great
show. One of the highlights of our vacation.

The northern lights have been seen as far south as Nashville, TN. I remember as a small child hearing my parents talking about seeing them from our house. Of course back then our skies were clearer because of less air traffic and other ways 'man' has messed up our atmosphere.

Amazing the kind of show you can see in the night sky.

Go to www.spaceweather.com. You can either sign up for phone alerts for a small fee or just check the website every day. I remember once from near Copper Harbor in the fall there was the top half of a brilliant green ring poking up from the horizon due north. Mom and I bundled into winter coats and sat out under a blanket for an hour watching it. A big laker all lit up passed directly through the ring.

Hi
Shirley, you may not know this, but there is also a thing known as light pollution; too many man-made light sources at night dim the stars we can see. That's part of what makes going up north a treat: I can see many more stars, more clearly, than down in SE Michigan. The Headlands, near Mackinaw City, is designated a dark sky park (& yes, it is a good way away from the lights in the city).

And, though on occasion the solar flares are powerful enough to create visible northern lights as far south as downstate Michigan ( & TN), the chances are better the farther north you are.

And, of course, seeing a lit-up laker go by, as Therese did, is an addtional, northern Michigan, treat.

I agree with you, Kathyrn....too many man-made lights! Didn't have that problem in N.D., less populated in the 1980s.

The reason I asked about 'strange formations' is, when we lived downstate in Auburn Hills, the northern lights were out. We we were standing outside of our carport and all of a sudden streaks of what looked like smoke came streaking across the sky and formed a three-tier dome right above our heads. First a large one, a medium one right on top of that one, then a small one right at the top. At the top was an opnening enough that you saw a couple of stars and some sky. All we did was stand under this thing and I did not want to move til it went away and the nights sky and stars were visible again. We just stood there and looked at each other. The next day I called Cranbrook Institute in Birmingham, Mi., and I was told the northern lights do make formations like that one.

It reminded me of being in a church under 3 domes.

I like your description, Mickill, especially the last part.:)

The best northern lights I have ever seen have been on Isle Royale, especially in the fall.

Was a busy weekend with a family wedding...so I didn't get a chance to view this til today..but this ancient yooper saw northern lights from our front porch in Swedetown that was really every color of the rainbow...as a kid I didn't know what was happening but they were beautiful...