Relative Something

We go from Trillium observation on the ground to glowing ionosphere in the sky. Last night, friends Pam Knutson and John Bramble drove out from the Cities to join Cyndie and me in an Aurora Borealis watch party on the hill in our hay field.

We closed gates to temporarily constrain the horses to the paddocks and back pasture. Then Asher and I walked up to the high spot just after sunset to scout our location for sky-watching.

Cyndie packed our zero-gravity recliners and blankets in the car and we set up to await the show.

After reading the multitude of reports getting posted about fantastic sightings in locations well to the south of us, I was prepared for a spectacular event. Cyndie has an app that gives an aurora forecast and it was sending alerts of the increased activity. As Pam and John arrived, the percentage of likelihood was indicating 33% in our location.

We had a great view of constellations and saw satellites move across the sky in addition to regular airplane traffic. As far as Aurora goes, we saw very little with our eyes. However, I had read that using Night Mode on our iPhones would capture more than our eyes perceive.

Bingo!

There was some color showing up through the camera lens around 11:30 p.m. that our eyes could barely see.

This was around the same time Cyndie took another look at the app to see what our chances were up to for a visible spectacle. It had changed from 33 down to 4%. That was good enough to help us all decide to call it a night.

Fatigue helped me easily get over a fear of missing out on even more dramatic viewing after we stopped watching. Our warm and cozy bed was calling my name loud and clear.

At least our iPhones saw something pretty cool.

I had fun watching the night sky with friends for a few hours and listening to the calls of an owl serenading us. I had even more fun climbing into bed and falling instantly into Sleepsville. By that hour, it didn’t matter to me if the viewing outside was becoming better than ever.

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