Aurora Alert Oct 10-11, 2024

I did end up going out Thursday night. Missed the bigger 9PM CDT substorm, like @JamesCaruso because my wife and I also had another event that evening which we did not get out of until after 9. However after driving around for 45 minutes looking for a spot in rural western Dane County that actually had somewhat of a view of the northern sky (not blocked by a tree-lined ridge) and waiting around while nothing much seemed to be happening, eventually a faint glow appeared in the northern sky and gradually brightened; ended up capturing these during the 11PM hour:

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Also, according to the info below my avatar, Thursday was my 20th anniversary as a member of Stormtrack! I joined when I was 18!
 
Here are a few of my pics from Thursday night's show in northeast Kansas. The first one is from at work in Topeka around 9:15, while the other two are from the old Buck Creek School north of Lawrence around 11:40. Overall it was as much as I could have possibly hoped for in Kansas. The May 10 event may have been slightly brighter, but cloud cover wasn't an issue this time and I had a much better plan in place to capture it. The red/pink colors were easily visible to the naked eye during the brighter substorms.


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I've not had an opportunity to go through any of my pics yet. Saw one of the early substorms at my GF's dad's house before I had to head home. Then, after I got home, the next substorm ramped up, and I was able to see it with the naked eye even in town. I'm not far from downtown, and I never would have thought it would be visible at my house.
 
I remembered what it was like to be a noob trying to chase a high risk day in Oklahoma. Was in West Michigan the 10th and tried to find a place to see the lights. Lots of people out trying to do the same.

Apparently public land closes at 10pm in Michigan and the gestapo was kicking people out of state park parking lots right at 10 sharp. Ended up on the lakeshore of Lake Michigan in Muskegon with 100s of my closest skywatcher friends lining both sides of the road taking cell phone pics while traffic tried to get by. It was a disaster.

Anyway, got a couple pics, but these were much less impressive than the May 10 event. Perhaps it was location (NE/SD vs MI) but I left frustrated. I also had to cut the night short as I had obligations Friday morning.20241010-IMG_8380.jpg20241010-IMG_8409.jpg
 
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