(meteorobs) violessence

[Bruce McCurdy]

[Warning: Not entirely *on* topic]

Took advantage of chinook warmth and mainly clear skies to spend an hour on 
my back deck here in Edmonton watching for early Geminids. The bright 
gibbous moon was setting over my garage roof, illuminating some nearby 
ripples of cirrus that bore a striking resemblance to NLC. No doubt what the 
source of illumination was for these night clouds, in fact the Moon lit up 
the world.

The Winter Hexagon, currently bookended by Mars and Sirius, was just 
beginning to cant over to the west, the Geminid radiant high in the south. 
My son came out to join me, and we enjoyed a pleasant conversation in the 
night breeze. Meteors weren't jumping, but Kevin saw one sporadic in the 
feet of Ursa Major, and 20 minutes later I saw one gorgeous Gem, slowly 
dropping down from the Twins toward Saturn, brief wake, easily as bright 
(and white) as Sirius.

Kevin noticed a pale aurora in the northeast that gradually started to move 
up the sky as we watched. He complained that he hadn't seen a colourful 
display since the great red aurora of "3 or 4 years ago" which I accurately 
dated to March 30, 2001 (it's the only red aurora I've ever seen, and 
happened on our local Astronomy Day).

Wouldn't you know it, but eventually the aurora became considerably bright 
and intensified into a narrow ribbon of green arching across the northern 
sky. Suddenly it burst into a garland of colours, violet, green, white, red, 
a fringe of blue, which flickered rapidly across the sky in the manner of a 
dancing flame. It was one of the fastest moving aurora I've ever seen, a 
remarkable show of benign violence. Kevin and I both exclaimed about the 
intensity of the violet.  Obstructed as we were by houses and trees, we were 
only getting part of the show, so after three or four minutes we got out of 
our sleeping bags and chairs to head to the school field only to find the 
show essentially over. The aurora had now spread out to cover the northern 
half of the sky, but more was less: its intensity and colour were gone. The 
aftermath was a blur of formless chaos.

In retrospect the entire show reminded me of a good solar flare: the 
gathering storm intensifying into a bright ribbon, then erupting in 
brilliance before spreading into a fading, ebbing maelstrom. An interesting 
analogy when one considers the source of our astonishing northern lights.

Unfortunately, the spreading of the aurora both before and particularly 
after the eruption was not conducive to meteor observing, but that's a 
trade-off I don't mind making, especially on a non-peak night. The session 
wouldn't have been complete, however, without that one sparkling Gem.

Bruce