Not so great...

Yep, the auroras were there last night but too weak to be seen this far south. My pal Chris White was up in Lutsen and did get a pretty nice show up there. He said the hardest thing was trying to manually focus to infinity with no light or things on the horizon to set the focus to.

Here are some of Chris' pics from last night:


We could faintly see them very low on the horizon while on our way to my favorite spot in the Sherburne Wildlife Refuge but got delayed when we ran into this:


Looks like the eagle nursery is up and running already. Great reason to come back after the hatch!

We went north a little further until we found an open east road but the tree line was so close it was impossible to see right down to the horizon. The other issue was the amount of traffic on the east road...crazy for a late Thursday night. View is looking south towards the metro area as a car passes through a 30s exposure.


Oh well. Maybe there will be some more opportunities for a really big show as those three sun spots rotate with the earth right in the line of fire.

A final shot of Melinda and myself enjoying the stars with the lovely orange glow of St Cloud in the distance.