[Vision2020] April 2-3, 2011: Auroras Over Northern US: US Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Circling Earth

[Ted Moffett]

Both news stories below from:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

This weekend, April 2-3, Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian
border into the United States with sightings as far south as
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. To the naked eye, the auroras were
mostly pale-white, but exposures of 10 or more seconds with
off-the-shelf digital cameras revealed spectacular color. Brian Larmay
sends this picture from Pembine, WI.

These are called "deep sky auroras" because like other deep-sky
objects (e.g., galaxies and nebulae) they are best seen using optics
and timed exposures. More of them could be in the offing. For the
third night in a row, a solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's
magnetic field. Moreover, the Moon is new, so the night sky is dark
enough for long exposures. Photographers, grab your cameras and be
alert for auroras.
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The US Air Force's X-37B space plane is circling Earth and, although
it is on a classified mission with an officially unpublished orbit,
sky watchers have spotted it. "I saw the X-37B from my home in
Pasadena, California, around sunrise on March 31st," reports Anthony
Cook of the Griffith Observatory. "The spacecraft's appearance was
remarkable. When overhead it was a little brighter than a 2nd
magnitude star with a slight yellow hue. Then it flared. As the X-37B
moved toward the horizon it became silvery and brightened to around
magnitude -6, far outshining Venus below it." The flare was presumably
caused by sunlight glinting from some flat surface on the
shuttle-shaped spacecraft, but no one can say for sure because it is a
classified mission.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett