Aurora borealis (Fairbanks, Flat: military, cabin, best)

[Raven and Bear]

Originally Posted by fiddlekitten

With all the city lights, I can understand how it won't really be plausible, so *coughs quietly* that's when you jump in the passenger seat of the truck, initiate a few-hour road trip up North, with a picinic basket, a blankie, and some hot chocolate ^_^ and you make for an unforgettable evening!

LOL, funny! I think they are primarily visible in winter, though, so a picnic basket and blankie, although sounding quite romantic, would be a little impractical in -15 temps with sleepy freezing kids and a sedan that doesn't like going out of Anchorage. When I get my big honking SUV, I just may head out of town to see the lights spur-of-the-moment, but my goal it NOT to live in Anchorage but to live in some quiet little AK town where we can see them from our back yard. Now THAT would be truly awesome. Our friends in Kenai have seem them often. In the meantime, those aurora websites will have to do, and the lights do make rare appearances in the Anchorage area.

[rotorhead]

Strangely enough, I've actually seen the aurora in summer (late July), and it was in midtown Anchorage to boot! When I was working for Lifeguard Alaska at Providence hospital, we got called out for a possible EMS flight that was later cancelled. We spent about an hour waiting up on the helipad so our eyes were well dark adapted. I was pretty bored towards the end and tried to get comfortable lying down on a low cement wall when I noticed that there were moving lights in the sky. You could only see them looking straight up, and it was better when we shielded our eyes from the somewhat distant lights of the parking lot, but they were quite visible. This would have been in 2002 or 2003, I can't remember.

Of course, that was also the year when there were some powerful solar storms and the aurora were visible as far south as the midwest, even NM and AZ in one case. As they say...your mileage may vary. We're heading towards another solar max pretty soon. Ought to be some good aurora viewing but it'll be dependent on the amount of solar activity, as always.

[Raven and Bear]

Well then, we'll be watching. Maybe this fall we'll see them yet right here in town. I saw a website that predicts the possibility of seeing them in Anchorge but can't remember which one it was. I bet a short drive down Old Seward on the Turnagain towards Bird creek and we'd see them.

[KieferSkunk]

Hi everyone. My wife and I will be traveling to Fairbanks in mid-March for our second anniversary, and we'll be staying about 5 miles out of the main town at what sounds like a really nice bed-and-breakfast up there. We're really looking forward to seeing the Northern Lights - for us, it's one of those "do at least once before you die" things.

Thank you all for the great information - it sounds like we picked a really good time to come!

Regarding the scientific side of this discussion: The reason you can sometimes see the Aurorae further south during the summer has to do much more with the strength of the solar radiation (sunspot activity) than the time of year. We saw aurorae down here in northwestern Washington a few years ago when we were at or near the solar maximum, and while it wasn't as spectacular here as it would be in Alaska, it was still very pretty. The geomagnetic storm that we were experiencing at the time was one of the strongest they'd seen in years, according to the Space Weather websites I was monitoring then. The event occurred in late August, if I recall correctly.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by KieferSkunk

Hi everyone. My wife and I will be traveling to Fairbanks in mid-March for our second anniversary, and we'll be staying about 5 miles out of the main town at what sounds like a really nice bed-and-breakfast up there. We're really looking forward to seeing the Northern Lights - for us, it's one of those "do at least once before you die" things.

Thank you all for the great information - it sounds like we picked a really good time to come!

Regarding the scientific side of this discussion: The reason you can sometimes see the Aurorae further south during the summer has to do much more with the strength of the solar radiation (sunspot activity) than the time of year. We saw aurorae down here in northwestern Washington a few years ago when we were at or near the solar maximum, and while it wasn't as spectacular here as it would be in Alaska, it was still very pretty. The geomagnetic storm that we were experiencing at the time was one of the strongest they'd seen in years, according to the Space Weather websites I was monitoring then. The event occurred in late August, if I recall correctly.

This is the best location I've found for current northernlights activity:

Space Weather Prediction Center of NOAA

[RayinAK]

Would you like to know about the Northern Lights? Most of the studies relating to Northern Lights in Alaska are conducted at the University Of Alaska, Fairbanks. Here is their web site:
http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/

[Xa'at]

I've seen the Northern Lights a couple of times. They're pretty rare in Juneau, and I'm a heavy sleeper so I could easily miss them.
However, when I was a little girl, I saw the most amazing display- greens and reds all across the sky, dancing around... It was awe inspiring. Interestingly, I was actually down south at the time, here in Idaho. I've been told that red is very rare, especially at such low latitudes.
I didn't try to take a picture, but I can't see how it would be any more difficult than photographing fireworks. There's nothing special about that light that makes it invisible to camera lenses.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Xa'at

I've seen the Northern Lights a couple of times. They're pretty rare in Juneau, and I'm a heavy sleeper so I could easily miss them.
However, when I was a little girl, I saw the most amazing display- greens and reds all across the sky, dancing around... It was awe inspiring. Interestingly, I was actually down south at the time, here in Idaho. I've been told that red is very rare, especially at such low latitudes.
I didn't try to take a picture, but I can't see how it would be any more difficult than photographing fireworks. There's nothing special about that light that makes it invisible to camera lenses.

While in the military, one winter night I saw some beautiful Northern Lights over in Plattsburgh, NY.

I see them often around North Pole and Fairbanks. I have seen some beautiful ones near Summit Lake in late August, and at my hunting campsite in September. This campsite sits on top of a mountain, so we have a clear view of the sky. Northern lights at very active in the interior, around Fairbanks.

[User 2]

Originally Posted by Rance

I've heard them. They crackle. And I am not kidding.

Geese crackle. (....no kidding)



I always found it an odd and puzzling situation, with so many people reporting being able to hear something, (the aurora), that, as far as I know, there's so far been no scientifically measured evidence that it can be physically possible.

I won't dispute that Rance says he heard something, if he said he heard something, ....he heard 'something', ...but what was he 'hearing'?

The altitude where the aurora is happening is so high above the atmosphere that it's said to be happening in a veritable vacuum, so sound is not something we understand to be possible up there.

There are magnetic variations which reach the ground, and they can be measured with instruments, and/or 'heard' by hooking up a magnetometer to a speaker, .....but you're not supposed to be able to really 'hear' electro magnetic variations with your ears alone.

But, those variations in the electro magnetic field might be key:

Maybe the most often cited, or most popular, theory is that what you hear is a point discharge, that's a phenomena that happens when a varient in an electrical field is strong enough to cause a discharge from one point to another, that discharge is similar to what you can see when you see a lightning generator in use, or when you see a spark across brushes in an electric motor. Those 'sparks' happen on the ground where air is heavy enough to produce what we know as sound, as is thunder from the spark of lightning when it comes down into the heavier atmosphere.

The scientifically adapted say that a point discharge can be observed in an electrical field of around 1500V/m, whereas naturally occurring electrical field values of 100V/m are normal, and since an auroral event can easily cause electro magnetic field variations of over 1000V/m, possibly there are, at times, variants high enough to cause point discharges to be happening on the ground, near enough that one can hear those point discharges.

(V/m is a way to measure field strength in an electrical field expressed in terms of volt power over the distance from the source expressed in meters, but then you have to get into ERP, which is the effective radiated power and...... well, if you're not an electical engineer, you'll need more background than I have time to provide, suffice it to say, the physics have been explored)

The only problem with this theory is that the scientists say that rise in V/m, ..that rise from the natural background V/m to the higher values measured during an auroral event, happens over a period of time longer than what normally causes a 'spark', which normally happens due to a very quick change in V/m.

Since that phenomena happens, or (in the case of the aurora, could happen, maybe what people 'hear' is explainable, ...I look forward to someday hearing how it's scientifically proven.

Until then, ....I've wondered if I didn't 'hear' the aurora too, ...but then, my dogs hear better than I can and they never react to much of what I think I hear, and I seldom hear what they're always going off about. I've been around the dogs when the aurora is acting up, and they don't seem to pay any mind to the sight or the 'sound'......


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Here's some more on the 'aural' aurora:

http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/mcgreevy/

Sound recordings here:

http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound...6.stories.html
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There used to be a web cam at Poker Flats that was pointed straight up into the air, ...don't know if it's still available. Anyone know?
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[Rance]

I was north of Fairbanks in the military back in the 80's. We were up on a hill top in the middle of the night. There was an awesome green band slithering back and forth like a snake. It looked close enough to touch. We would yell and it seemed like the thing reacted. And when we just sat there in total silence...I swear you could hear it crackling!