Brutkey

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

The auroras were still going strong at 2:30 am, and when I went out at 6 to take care of goats and chickens. Auroras always seem to have a flickery, shimmery quality after midnight. I've never seen that shimmer before midnight, only in the morning hours. Any experts know why?

The auroras slowly disappeared into the lightening dawn sky. Looking forward to more tonight!!

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I can't stop thinking about the auroras. That was amazing. And there very likely will be more tonight!! https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g3-strong-geomagnetic-storming-continues-g4-severe-still-expected

...I wonder how it's going up there for Starlink and the other thousands of sats whizzing by each other? 😬😬

Bright red aurora with pillars mixed in, and some green around the edges. There's the silhouette of an old barn in the bottom of the photo, including an old weather vane.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

The sky isn't quite dark enough to see if there are auroras yet, but the fucking Starlinks are easy to see. Due to the Starlink main orbital shell configuration, there is almost always a Starlink or two visible crawling across the sky at the same elevation as the North Star from my latitude (lots more in other parts of the sky too... sigh.)

Remember when Starlink publicly and loudly promised they'd get fainter than magnitude 7? That sure would have been nice. Liars.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Hard to tell through a window, but I think the sky looks kinda red again! Time to set up my camera, put on lots of layers, and head outside. Wooo!!!

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

yes yes Yes YEs YES YES YES!!!

PURPLE! RED! ORANGE!! GREEN!!! WOWWWW

(It was not this bright naked-eye, but these colours are all totally visible! Incredible!)

A patch of bright auroras, made up of columns that all start bright green at the bottom, transition to orange further up, then bright pink, then purple. There are silhouetted trees in front, and some satellite streaks behind. Similar to the previous picture, but with some more bright green at the very bottom of the sky A patch of bright red and purple on one side of the sky, with bright green on the other, looking a bit swirly. There's silhouetted trees in front of the red, and a silhouetted barn in front of the green. An arc made up of vertical columns of purple, red, and green, with bright green background. There are silhouetted bare trees in one corner of the photo.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

More more more!

A silhouetted bare tree, with red columns behind it, and green covering the whole rest of the sky. A bunch of aurora columns on the left, starting green at the bottom and transitioning to red at the top, with green covering the rest of the sky. There are two silhouetted spruce trees in front of the green. An arc made of vertical columns starting green at the bottom, transitioning to orange and then red then purple at the top, with green in the background of the sky. A bunch of columns in an arc, but a few of the columns start lower down in the sky, and are bright green at the bottom. All of the columns transition to orange and then red and the purple. The rest of the sky is green.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

This is looking SOUTH. Holy crap.

A bunch of spruce trees silhouetted in front of bright green sky.
Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Well, this is embarrassing. Looks like I finally cursed at Starlink enough that I managed to open up some kind of portal in VLEO right over my barn. Sorry everybody! I promise I'll help clean up.

Bright green and red auroras mixed together, but instead of viewing the vertical columns close to the horizon, the vertical columns are directly overhead, so they appear to converge on a point directly above a silhouetted barn. It looks like something out of a horror film.