Payson Aurora
January 19- 21, 2026

Uploaded 1/22/26

 
 Two
            nights in a row, we recorded the impact of a huge solar Coronal
            Mass Ejection from a flare a few days before, resulting in one
            of the strongest aurora storms across the US in over 20 years.
            Here in Arizona, the impact was far more subtle due to our southerly
            lattitude, and we saw some very dim red glows to the north for
            two nights straight. Fortunately, with our especially red sensitive
            camera and the tracking Aurora Cam I was able to record all night
            long automatically the entire two nights where the Kp index was
            over 7. Here are a few of the more interesting shots taken over
            those two nights.

 

            

Here is the Kp index for both nights.  You can
see that the impact was hard and fast on night 1,
and the level continued though the day and 
a brief  blip the second night near morning 
finished the event.

            
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January 19th: 6:50 pm to 5am
 

            

Here is a panel of thumbnails showing all the 
photos taken automatically in one night.  The aurora 
can be seen to change from frame to frame, highlighting
the need to shoot continuously all night long when the
kp index is high.

            
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Early on on the first night at around 7pm deep red 
but diffuse glows to the north.  

            
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Around 2:30 in the morning, a set of blue rays appeared
for about half an hour and were huge!  Remember that
this is a 180 degree fishe eye lens.

            
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January 20th: 7:00 pm to 5am

 

            

Much calmer the second night, almost nothing until
near morning when this glow appeared to the north.
The red haze in the sky is cirrus clouds not aurora.

            
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Instrument:  Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens
Platform:  Robotic Barn Door Mount
Camera:  Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO400
Exposure:  5m
Filters:  None
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  8/10, Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  45F
Processing Tools:  Photoshop CS2, Maxim DSLR
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