The Geomagnetic Storm Resulting From the Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections Produced by Sunspot 486

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Sunspot 486,  October 26, 2003

It had been overcast in Southern Ontario for days and the only image that I was able to get of the large sunspot activity was this one on October 26, 2003.  Sunspot 486 is visible on the left side of the solar disk.

    

The skies cleared up just enough for this image, which was taken with a Nikon D100 camera and a 300mm lens (450mm effective focal length with the Nikon D100).  The clouds provided just enough filtering so I didn't need to use my Baader solar filter.   Please adhere to safe solar observing techniques when viewing the Sun.

Aurora Borealis,  October 29, 2003

The overcast conditions were persistent on October 29th, when the first of two blasts swept past the Earth.  Amazingly at around 11:15 p.m. the skies cleared and the show was spectacular for about 45 minutes before it clouded over again.  The pulses of auroral light from the North, shooting over my head were spectacular!

Nikon D100 Digital SLR, 28mm lens (42mm effective focal length with the D100), f2.8, 20 second exposures at ISO 320

Aurora Borealis, October 30, 2003

A second blast swept past the Earth and triggered another geomagnetic storm.  These images were captured on the evening of October 30th.  This show was in primetime for about an hour from 6:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.  The vivid array of different colours, encompassing the entire visible spectrum was absolutely stunning!

Nikon D100 Digital SLR, 28mm lens (42mm effective focal length with the D100), f2.8, 20 second exposures at ISO 320

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