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DanielLB
Immortal
Mar 2 2015, 7:15am
Post #1 of 33
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Have you ever seen the Northern and/or the Southern Lights?
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Have you ever seen the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) or the aurora australis (Southern Lights)? Where and when did you see them? What form and colour did they take?
Multiple answers allowed.
(This post was edited by DanielLB on Mar 2 2015, 7:17am)
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Kim
Valinor
Mar 2 2015, 8:08am
Post #2 of 33
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It was actually on a flight home from Denver, and we could see the green light on the horizon. It was fairly distant, but still really cool.
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zarabia
Tol Eressea
Mar 2 2015, 8:15am
Post #3 of 33
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There was one time when they were supposedly visible where I live. I drove out of town but could never get far enough away from lights to see it.  I've found a place that's plenty dark, just waiting for another opportunity.
Maybe one day I can make a trip up north just for the chance to see them. 
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BlackFox
Half-elven
Mar 2 2015, 10:15am
Post #4 of 33
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The northern lights are sometimes visible in Estonia, but I've never been lucky enough to witness an occurrence.
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macfalk
Valinor
Mar 2 2015, 10:40am
Post #5 of 33
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No, but I could if I really wanted to.
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Which is to say, taking a drive up north.
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arithmancer
Grey Havens
Mar 2 2015, 12:33pm
Post #6 of 33
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I think I have; it was as a child while attending an overnight summer camp in Michigan (south of the usual area for the phenomenon, but possible if there was heightened geomagnetic activity at the time). It looked like a green and purple glow in the night sky and occurred well after sunset, on an evening that we were having a campfire so we were out late at night.
I have never set foot on any part of the Southern Hemisphere.
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Mar 2 2015, 1:32pm
Post #7 of 33
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Yes, once in southern Connecticut.
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It's rare they're visible so far south. My daughter and I went to one of the open playing fields at a school that was as far away from lights as possible, and watched the faint colorful thin sheets of light gently dance in the sky. 
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Mar 2 2015, 3:21pm
Post #8 of 33
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The Northern Lights are occasionally visible from Western New York although light pollution can make them very hard to make out.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Mar 2 2015, 3:36pm
Post #9 of 33
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The first time I was flying to Europe and we went over Greenland, and I saw a blue glow in the north that I figured must be Northern LIghts.
The second time was in Colorado, right in our neighborhood. We saw a flickering orange glow in the north and thought at first it must be a fire. We got in the car to go see (because that's what we do whenever we see something unusual) but there was no fire. So we finally figured out it was an aurora.
Then a few years later we saw something very similar and thought it was an aurora, but when we went to investigate we saw flames on the mountain; it was the beginning of the devastating High Park Fire.
And I can't ever think of the Northern Lights without thinking of this poem, which my dad has always been fond of quoting:
Oh roar a roar for Nora, Nora Alice in the night,
For she has seen aurora borealis burning bright.
A furor for our Nora, and applaud aurora seen,
For where throughout the winter has our borealis been?
--Walt Kelly
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Annael
Immortal
Mar 2 2015, 3:45pm
Post #10 of 33
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from a plane taking the polar route from Seattle to Amsterdam.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Mar 2 2015, 3:52pm
Post #11 of 33
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I didn't get a photo of the aurora, but the fire looked like this.
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The aurora was kind of similar: photo
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Magpie
Immortal
Mar 2 2015, 3:52pm
Post #12 of 33
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Latitude: 47.46 N
We were taking a weekend (or long weekend) trip out of the Twin Cities. We went up to the Iron Range to see the mines and associated hoohaw. (3 Males / 1 Females... many of our vacations seem to include mines and such)
We got a motel room on the outskirts of town. We realized the floaty ethereal clouds we could see in the night sky might be Northern Lights so we tried getting away from the street lights enough to see well. Unfortunately, we were on a busy country highway next to a subdivision so we never got away from the street lights but the 'clouds' were, in fact, Northern Lights. They were white and moved slowly and not particularly showy. But I'd been trying to see Northern Lights for years and living in a 7 county metro area is just not conducive to dark skies. My son and I watched outdoors for awhile until he tired of it (husband and other son only looked a moment). We went back to the motel room and everyone feel asleep. But I couldn't stop watching the lights out of the small window. It almost seemed as if I could feel them... as if their presence was palpable. I did finally fall asleep and that I've never seen them since.
The date would have been summer (July) of 2000. I would have no hope of remembering except that nearby Virginia, MN was the site of well-known murder trial at that time. I googled the trial to get the date.
on a tangent, I've been watching the The Great British Baking Show and they recently had to make a bread/pastry called potica. Potica is one of the ethnic/cultural foods that have survived in pockets of the US and Eveleth is one place you can get it. It was brought there by the Slovenians and Croatians immigrants who came to work in the iron mines. As you can imagine, pasties are big up there too, brought over by the Cornish mine workers. Yum. I love pasties.
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sauget.diblosio
Tol Eressea
Mar 2 2015, 5:24pm
Post #13 of 33
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or an aurora borealis like event (i don't know enough about it to know what to call it), in southern Illinois back in the 80s. It was quite intense, with very vivid colors and taking up almost the entire sky. I was with a bunch of friends driving on backroads. It was almost an otherworldly experience. It lasted 15-20 minutes and it was over. Never heard anything on the news about it, and i've never seen anything like it since-- and that's with many a night spent in the wilderness all across America camping.
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Dame Ioreth
Tol Eressea
Mar 2 2015, 6:09pm
Post #14 of 33
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Northern Lights in NE Georgian Bay
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We see them at the cottage every couple of years. Some years it's easier to see than others. They truly are beautiful.
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Meneldor
Valinor
Mar 2 2015, 8:48pm
Post #15 of 33
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Yes, I've seen the northern lights, and
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Attack ships on fire off Orion's shoulder, c-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannheuser gate... All those memories...
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Mar 3 2015, 4:18am
Post #16 of 33
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Some years ago during a period of intense solar flare activity the Northern Lights were visible in California, and I was able to get a clear night and see them. I saw the Southern lights on my way back north from a cruise to the Ross Sea area of Antarctica in 2011. We had to get north of the Antarctic Circle, though, because it was not dark enough to see them farther south. Similarly, when I was in the high Arctic last summer it was too light at night to see Northern Lights, as it was during my previous trips to Alaska during the summer.
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Elizabeth
Half-elven
Mar 3 2015, 4:36am
Post #17 of 33
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From the MV Orion, Feb., 2011:
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Ciars
Rohan
Mar 3 2015, 9:23pm
Post #19 of 33
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At home in N Ireland. I've saw them a few times but the clearest was about five or six years ago they were beautiful, it was like a hazy steam of green that seemed to glow. We can be lucky here as we can catch sight of them but unfortunately as it's usually a cloudy night they can most often be hidden.
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Donry
Tol Eressea
Mar 3 2015, 10:00pm
Post #20 of 33
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Northern Lights several times....I live in Southern Ontario, near Toronto, so we don't see them very often. And they are not very bright when visible this far south. The last time I saw them was in January on a drive home from work. The best I have ever seen them was about 2 hours north of Toronto in the Haliburton Highlands. We were at my cousins wedding, wandering across a highway to our hotel at the end of the night. The lights were dancing across the sky behind our hotel.
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swordwhale
Tol Eressea
Mar 6 2015, 12:35am
Post #21 of 33
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when I was a kid, my Mom and I were driving home from grandma's. There was a very strange red glow in the sky, which unnerved me...
I heard a news story later that talked about how we'd had the brightest display of northern lights in decades...
We don't usually see them at all here in southern Pennsylvania (just north of the Chesapeake Bay), but occasionally we get glimpses.
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Brethil
Half-elven
Mar 7 2015, 12:48am
Post #22 of 33
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Would love to see them some day. One or both. //
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joec_34
Rivendell
Mar 9 2015, 5:39pm
Post #23 of 33
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I saw them in probably 2004 or 2005 in West Virginia. I had always wanted to see them. When I was out feeding the dog just after sunset, there was a beautiful green in the sky. I thought it looked like the aurora, so I ran inside and hit up the internet to see if I was crazy. Sure enough, they were visible that far south for some special reason. Just a normal evening turned into a dream come true!
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BlackFox
Half-elven
Mar 17 2015, 9:14pm
Post #24 of 33
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Faintly, but still. Talk about a coincidence!
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DanielLB
Immortal
Mar 18 2015, 10:07am
Post #25 of 33
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They were still far too North for me to see them last night (only by 90 miles or so!)
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