Nope, not I, even though Ottawa’s nighttime skies have been overcast for the last two night times, completely obscuring the aurora display from an unusually strong solar storm. (I mean, come on: We had rain last night. Rain!) Considering the knowledge and the specialist equipment often needed to even see, much less fully appreciate, astronomical events, the auroras by contrast are an equal-opportunity event.
“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
Yup, you basically just need to stay up, show up, and look up. And the sky needs to stay out of the way.
“That’s really the gift from space weather: the aurora,” Steenburgh said. He and his colleagues said the best views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.
Snap a picture of the sky, and “there might be actually a nice little treat there for you,” said Mike Bettwy, operations chief for the prediction center.
My phone camera is better at picking up light than my eye even just when photographing sunsets, so I guess this doesn’t surprise me, but it’s good to be reminded. Go ahead: Take your best shot, literally.
