Saturday September 28th the 30th annual Okie-Tex star party began and for the next six days we enjoyed great skies at night. Mother nature helped celebrate the occasion Monday October 1st. That night a powerful CME hit Earth producing auroras all the way down to the Oklahoma panhandle.
Pictured above is one moment of the night sky after midnight, click for larger image. From left to right is Jay Ellis, John Davis and my spots on the field. In the center is my tent glowing from an iPad checking Spaceweather.com.
One could not see the red color of this aurora. To the naked eye the north sky had a gray glow that occasionally displayed structure and movement. When I first spotted this phenomenon there were stronger upward spikes of light. Very cool. If this is what we saw at latitude +36.9 degrees it must have been spectacular further north in Minnesota and Canada.
More information and pictures from the trip in the days to come.