Payson Aurora 
May 10, 2024

Uploaded 5/12/17

 

            
 One of the most
            energetic series of solar flaring events in recent history occured
            on May 8th sending four X class CMEs towards the Earth. All of
            them arrived over a half a day period creating a massive G4 solar
            storm. This rocketed the Kp index to the maximum of 9 for many
            hours and touched off extensive auroras all over the world down
            to Purto Rico at 18N lattitude. The source of all of this was
            the huge sunspot that grew to a monsterous size seen in the first
            image here, as it crossed the center of the Sun and was aimed
            squarely at the Earth. 

            
Here are some images
            I took of this event from Payson, with some074748aRWC.jpg supplementary data to show how
            big this event was.

            
Click on these
            images for a larger view!

 

            
The huge sunspot in white light on its way to the limb.  This is with
the AR152 refractor, a Baader Herschel Wedge, Continuum filter
and ASI183 camera.

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The Aurora circle around the pole where the reach of the  current event was 
expected.

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The Kp index went crazy for may hours.  This graph is updated every 
3 hours. Anything over 7 is a possible photographic aurora here in
Arizona.  they are quite rare!

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The robotic Aurora Cam was fired up once again and captured
the event from darkness at 8:50pm to first light after 4am.  You can 
clearly see the color changes during the night.  each shot is 5 minutes 
long with a 8mm fish eye lens, spaced at 1 minute intervals to allow
the barndoor to rewind to start.  Only the faintest ruddy hue was visible 
to the naked eye, it really wa not such a visual experience exept for
the northern horizon appeard  brighter than normal.

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CNN news 

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Here are a set of images that are a good
representitive sample of what I got.  This first
one is rotated 90d and shows the top edge at 
a point PAST the zenith along with the ISS 
flying through.

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Oranges, dull reds at first with some
pillars and mounds

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Changing to purples now, with the
Milky Way

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Just before light in the morning, was
really purple.

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Instrument:  Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens
Platform:  Robotic Barn Door Mount
Camera:  Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO800
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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