StarryEstate

I got home from work on Sunday November 7th about 11:45pm. I had set my scope up Saturday
night for some piggyback shots so was planning on shooting more tonight since I’d left the scope set
up. When I got out of my Escape I looked north towards the Peaks of Otter. The sky was littered
with stars…oh boy! Just as I was about to turn around something caught my eye. I realized my
usually dark northern horizon was glowing as if there were a Sheetz station on the other side of The
Peaks. Then I started seeing a reddish hue in the sky. I ran in the house and went online to see if
there was any buzz going on about aurora activity. I had 23 e-mails from around the country about a
major flare that was hitting us. I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed outside. What I saw when
I got out there stopped me dead in my tracks. The sky was on fire! Not only was the horizon
glowing brightly, but there were light pillars shooting straight up, some into Perseus at the zenith. Some
of these pillars were so bright it looked like there were searchlights on the horizon pointing straight up
into the sky. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. The “storm” seemed to be centered
between 10 and 20 degrees east of Polaris but I could see pillars and colors from about 30 degrees
west of Polaris to about 60 degrees east it. The movement and changing intensity of the pillars and
curtains just blew me away. Then, at 12:20, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. No more
pillars or curtains, but the horizon was still glowing. I loaded the camera in the Escape, and headed to
the back of my property where my scope was set up. I was so overwhelmed with what I had seen I
didn’t even consider taking any astrophotos. I wanted to see some more auroras! Over the next 2
hours the bluish glow on the horizon would ebb and flow, sometimes bright, sometimes dim, but always
there. At times I thought I could barely make out a faint reddish hue but I wasn’t sure. Then about
2:30 it all fired back up. More bright pillars and this time the curtains were a little brighter. At one
time there were probably 12-15 pillars across a 40 degree stretch of the horizon. It was truly an
amazing sight! This burst of activity lasted about 12 minutes and then died. The moon had risen by
now so I called it a night and reluctantly packed everything up, all the while glancing to the north in
hopes of catching one more look at one of nature’s most beautiful sights, The Northern Lights!