shineyourlight: 현란한 오로라 쇼: Sky light, go wild, North and South

Sky light, go wild, north and south.

Jonina Oskarsdottir captured this picture of the northern lights over Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland.

We're almost getting used to great views of the northern lights from places like Iceland (see above), Scandinavia and Russia — but last night's lights were visible from the top tier of the United States as well.

"Simply the most spectacular sighting ever, for me," a skywatcher from Pierz, Minn., wrote in a note to the Auroaral Activity Observation Network. "While the color was only green, I witnessed curtains and rays, with much shifting. Most incredible were the pulsations, about two per second, that extended to zenith. ... Simply magical."

Will tonight provide another southerly show? It's hard to predict, but the sunspot region that sent the big outburst our way, known as AR1429, apprears to be growing and is sending out fresh blasts. Late Thursday, AR1429 shot out an M6.3-class flare, sending another coronal mass ejection toward Earth. That CME is expected to arrive early Sunday morning, "adding to the geomagnetic unrest already under way," SpaceWeather.com Other sightings have come in from Washington state, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Someone ever reported seeing a "very diffuse greenish glow" in the skies over Wyoming. "Would not have known that it was aurora if I wasn't paying attention to the current solar activity," the anonymous observer wrote.

To figure out whether you have a chance of seeing the northern lights, keep an eye on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Ovation Auroral Forecast map as well as the University of Alaska's Aurora forecast website. If you're in the aurora zone, you can maximize your chances by getting far away from city lights, finding a place with good northern exposure and keeping watch between "magnetic midnight" and dawn. Tonight will be tricky, because the glare from the just-past-full moon might interfere — but as these pictures illustrate, the view might well be worth the trouble. By Alan Boyle

The full moon shines out amid the aurora in a picture taken by the AuroraMAX all-sky camera near Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories late March 8.

An auroral display stretches over Russia's Kola Peninsula, around Mount Khibiny, in a picture taken by Aleksander Chernucho.

Time-lapse footage of the Earth as seen from the ISS

Aurora Borealis Feb.14th 2011

Northen lights ripple through the skies over Abisko in Swedish Lapland late March 7.

The AuroraMAX all-sky camera near Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories captured this subtle display of greenish and reddish auroral lights early this morning. For more from AuroraMAX,

Aurora borealis in the sky above Abisko National Park during a geomagnetic storm on 03-07-12 from Lights Over Lapland on Vimeo.

Aurora borealis dancing in the trees aboveAvisko National park from Lights over Lapland on Vimeo.

Photographer Chad Blakley captured this view of the northern lights over Sweden's Abisko National Park on Feb. 6. "The lights started around 6:00 p.m. and continued into the very early hours of the morning," Blakley told

The rippling northern lights share the skies with a nearly full moon over Yellowknife in Canada's Northern Territories early today, as seen by the Canadian Space Agency's AuroraMAX wide-angle camera.

Photographer Brian Emfinger captured this view of the northern lights from a spot near Ozark, Ark.

Photographer Randy Halverson saw a beautiful green and red aurora over Wisconsin.

Richard Miller was visiting Washington Court House, Ohio, when he snapped this picture of the reddish aurora.

David DelaGardelle snapped this picture of the northern lights as he was heading home from his Indiana workshop.

Pennsylvania photographer Jeff Berkes captured a quick image of the auroral glow.

This greenish auroral display was seen from the International Space Station on Sept. 29 as the orbital outpost was passing over the American Midwest. The city lights of Omaha, Des Moines, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and St. Louis are visible below.

Solar storms like the outbursts of early August have sparked incredible light shows in the night sky. This NASA image, released June 21, 2010, shows the aurora australis as seen from the International Space Station on May 29, 2010. The space station was located over the Southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of 220 miles, with astronauts most likely looking toward Antarctica (not visible) and the South Pole. Several stars appear as bright pinpoints against the blackness of space toward the top right of the image.

A geomagnetic storm produced a colorful show of aurora borealis in the skies over Hyvinka in southern Finland on the morning of Oct. 31, 2003.

Sylvain Serre took this picture of the northern lights on Sept. 3 from the village of Ivujivik in Quebec.
Spectacular Norway Northern Light

NASA astronaut snapped this picture of an auroral display from the International Space Station and sent it down to Earth via his Twitpic account on Monday.

Göran Strand of Östersund, Sweden, took a panoramic photo of Tuesday night's sights and wrapped it into a 360-degree composition titled "Planet Aurora."

Auroras 22.01,12 Birtavarre Norway from Orjan Bertelsen on Vimeo.

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in Lapland, Finland

The northern lights take on a weird, rippling shape in a super-wide-angle view captured Sunday night by the Canadian Space Agency's AuroraMAX webcam in Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories.

Bjorn Jorgensen's view of the aurora was captured on Sunday at Grotfjord, close to Tromso in north Norway. "This was amazing," he told SpaceWeather.com. "It was a wonderful experience to see these stunning auroras." The bird-of-prey picture was taken with a Nikon D3S camera equipped with a Nikkor 14-24mm lens. Exposure for the pictures in Jorgenson's set was ISO 2200 at five and six seconds.

The auroral lights in Sweden were so bright that Chad Blakley could capture this view from the street. Blakley says his pictures were shot with a Nikon D7000 and a Tokina 11/16 lens at 2.8 with a 1600 ISO six-second exposure.

Adrian Jannetta took this picture of the auroral arc on Sunday night, about 2 miles west of Morpeth in the Northumberland region of England. "This is the first time I've photographed the aurora and the first time I've seen it since about 2004," he wrote on Flickr.

The green glow of the aurora is reflected in a rock pool on the Emerald Isle, in Ireland's County Donegal. "The photo was taken at the end of my shoot as a last grab before heading home," photographer Gregory Clarke said in an email. "I climbed over some rocks to get to a rock pool, took a few test shots and then was treated to what I photographed. The photo was taken at Malin Head, County Donegal, using a Canon EOS Mk3.

The red and green auroral lights look like glowing curtains in Jason Ahrns' photo, captured near Fairbanks, Alaska, using a Nikon D5000 camera and an all-sky lens.

Marketa Stanczykova said she used a Canon 5D camera with a 17-40mm lens to take this picture of the northern lights dancing over Chatanika in Alaska. "I recently moved to Fairbanks," she said in an email. "My friends, photographers Ronn Murray and Casey Thompson (aurora chasers) took me close to Chatanika. It was an amazing night."