Special thanks to Kampas for waking me up to catch the show.
At 0330CDT
I stumbled out of bed, got quickly dressed, grabbed my camera (checked to make sure battery, flash card, and tripod mount were all in the bag) and walked out to the car. I saw a bright white/purple pillar right over my neighbor's house and this is town with street lights set on "Perma-Noon." My groggy anger from being awoken quickly disipated and was replaced with astonishment and a sense of urgency to get out of town to see what I could.
Luckily for me "the country" is only an 8 minute drive east, once i got out there I could see a massive purple curtain with a green base due east and going straight overhead. I decided beggars can't be choosers and that I would have to stop at the next intersection to get photos and watch it or else I'd miss the show. Unfortunately my location was plagued by light pollution in half the sky: very bad from due North to due West due to Urbana and distant Rantoul, and semi bad to my east due to St. Joseph/Ogden.
I fired off some photos and from what I've heard from Kampas, Pritchard, and seen in photos my show wasn't nearly as good as it had been. Oh well, at least I saw what I did
![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Enough semi-conscious rambling now with the photos:
http://www.dbphotoworld.net/photos/cil/05-15-05/
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some aurora still visible in early twighlight due north and just east and west of due north along the horizon (faint green tint):
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the twighlight grapped on my aurora.
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After the peak ended right around 0400hrs CDT I relocated to a better spot a few miles north to meet with Pritchard who had been toughing it out all night, by the time I got there twilight became an obvious issue and it was clear our show was over.
hollingshead as always, amazing photos! I Predict your site will crash due to the traffic by tuesday
![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
DougK: amazing photo.
for the photo nerds out there:
Camera: Canon D60 (struggles with aurora photos sometimes)
Lense: Canon EF 20mm 1:2.8
ISO 400 (probably too high of an iso for this but i was still waking up while taking photos)
Aperature: 2.8
Shutter Speed: Variable (bulb setting)