Tonight (right now) is supposed to be much more active than last night, and last night people living as far south as Arizona managed to take faint pictures of the Aurora. Check this out... http://spaceweathergallery.com/indi...d=101681&PHPSESSID=264a402beohvcj6mba0s6plnr5 Edit: That photo was taken in Payson, AZ. Which is roughly the same latitude as Los Angeles. Pretty crazy. I'm going to take my SLR out with the widest aperture lens I own and take a few long exposure shots due north if I can manage to find an angle without any lights directly in my field of view. A good lens hood does wonders blocking out intrusive light. I'd be happy if i can get just a tiny bit of color... Even though I'm in Southern California just south of Los Angeles, I managed to get this decent shot of the "blood moon" eclipse a few months back. Arizona is a heck of a lot clearer than SoCal though...
Pretty much died out completely here on the west coast just as it was getting dark enough for viewing. Bummer.
Events like this remind me why Americans need to call their legislators and support the SHIELD ACT to harden our electrical grid. Had this solar flare been a big one like the "near-miss" in 2012, it would have wiped out our nations entire electrical grid and done enough damage to keep that grid down for probably a year at a minimum. In the 1800's, the United States had a direct hit from a solar flare very similar to what barely missed us in 2012 and it killed our very early electrical grid, melted transmission wires right off the power poles, and pretty much wiped out our entire electrical infrastructure. Had that solar flare occured today, the United States would be without electricity for an estimated 1-2 years. Can you imagine not having power for that long? No refrigeration, no lighting, no heating (it takes electricity to distribute natural gas), no kitchen stove, no microwave, no food distribution network... nothing. Within a few months this nation would look like the movie "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior". Government would not be able to do a thing to help anyone. It would be anarchy. Experts believe such an event would result in the deaths of 9 out of every 10 Americans by the time power is restored. Scary thought isn't it? For about $10 billion dollars, the SHIELD Act would make the necessary upgrades to our electrical grid to protect it from such events. China, Russia, and Korea have already done this for their grid years ago to protect themselves from not only Solar flares, but from an electromagnetic pulse created by the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the upper atmosphere. Currently, the United States has NO PROTECTION from such an attack because people like Harry Reid, some electrical worker Unions, and a handful of others wont allow the bill to come up for a vote. This isn't a republican vs democrat issue. This is a national security issue and politicians need to stop playing games with the security of our country and safety of it's citizens. We need the SHIELD act ASAP to protect from both solar flares and EMP attack. http://www.shieldact.com/
The microwave and other things are getting fried itself too. Imagine every north american household needs a new microwave.
Just got home. Got to the top of the hill at around 11:30pm. There were a ton of people up there, but some people were giving up too early. We stayed untl 1:30am or so. Nothing except some shooting stars. Looking at the map now, I see it shifting left, so it would probably be around 4am here we'd see some action.
Look at this big sunspot 2192, bigger than 10x earth. http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/sunspots/ Maybe there is something coming again.