Aurora in Iceland, 1996

with the Pleiades and a rising Moon.

Aurora activity

Despite still being in the dregs of the solar cycle the aurora occasionally really activates, and it's doing so right now. While it's daytime here in North America, the aurora is detectable by the way it distorts radio signals, producing a warbling effect on ionospherically bounced waves. The enhanced ionization also provides the ability to bounce much higher frequency radio signals than is usual, although everything is still subject to that pesky warbling.

Current observed aurora here via a NOAA satellite--it takes some time to refresh in orbit.

Spaceweather.com will have updates at some point soon; they are usually on the ball with sightings of neat events.
See the aurora forecast at UAF; which is useful, although long-term forecasts are always tough.

This alert was brought to my attention by the DXrobot, which monitors radio amateur's contacts for notes about unusual VHF radio conditions. Click here for the arcane info.

P.S. It would seem unlikely for this to be an "event" for Chicago city folk--the moon is out, light pollution is as bad as ever, clouds are coming in, and sometimes these events are short-lived.

Aurora photos from Yerkes Observatory

This Saturday members of the Ryerson Astronomical Society visited Yerkes Observatory to use the 41-inch reflector. Luckily the clouds cleared for observing until midnight or so, when the clouds reappeared. While taking a break, I noticed a faint glow low to the north, and assumed it was scattered light from the setting first quarter moon, but then I realized the moon was too far to the west for that to happen. Then the glow turned green, and I knew we had an aurora. The clouds cleared out, and we were treated to a fantastic display of the northern lights. It started out green and in the north, and spread overhead, where it suddenly changed color and we saw light pastel blue and violets in addition to the green. The display continued until dawn at 4AM.

http://astro.uchicago.edu/RAS/rchive/yerkes-aurora/index.html