KIM HYATT
(click on image for enlarged view)
Details and comments for images 01 through 07:
Subject: Intense auroral display
Time: Between 12:00 and 1:15 AM MST, Saturday, March 31.
19mm lens at f2.8; exposures from 15 to 45 seconds.
Film: Fuji 400 (forgot the exact film name) for color prints.
Location: Little Mountain parking area.
Comments: I first noticed the aurora in the north at about 9:45 PM Friday as I was out walking - it was a fairly bright indistinct glow centered on Cassiopeia, visible through bright city lights and moonlight! By the time I reached home at about 10:20, the light had faded. I thought the show was over. Every few minutes I looked out the back door to the north to see if anything else was happening.
At about 11:10 I stepped out my back door and saw an eruption of very bright light due east, extending probably 60 to 70 degrees toward the zenith. Reds, yellows and greens were all visible, and were bisected by prominent shafts of white light. The glow in the north had also returned, much brighter than earlier. Never had I seen anything like this!
I packed my family and photo gear into the car and drove to Little Mountain to take pictures, arriving just before midnight. The very best part of the aurora had faded, but the show was still spectacular. The light was visible from horizon to horizon, in all directions. For awhile it was brightest in the east, but soon faded while the northern horizon brightened. South of the zenith I watched several rays that radiated, not from the north, but from a point nearly overhead. These are faintly visible in one of my photos. You can also see in the same photo the constellation Corvus, so you know the camera was facing south.
At about 12:45, the northern horizon brightened, primarily in green light, but faint reds were still visible all over the sky. At 1:15, my family finally convinced me to take them home, so I couldn't say how much longer the display lasted.
I have seen the aurora from the Skyline Drive in central Utah, from Big Mountain in Northern Utah, from SPOC, and on several occasions from Yellowstone National Park. However, I've never seen anything that even remotely compares to Friday's show. I hope it will happen again before solar max is over!
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008 through 010, Leonids meteor shower (storm?) 18 NOV 2001 from Pipe Springs National Monument in northern Arizona
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011 to 016 Some of the pictures Kim showed at the 28 MAY 2002 SLAS meeting (many of the originals look much better than these scans.
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Sunset
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The Pleiades buried deep in the zodiacal light. Mars is directly
below the Pleiades, while Aldebaran and Saturn are to its upper left.
Image taken on Utah’s West Desert about 03:45, 05 APR 2002 (UT)
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Comet Ikeya-Zhang just above the Andromeda Galaxy (M-31) as seen
from the Utah West Desert. Two bright spots to the lower left of the galaxy
are thought to be flares dropped by a military aircraft. About 04:00,
05 APR 2002 (UT)
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Halo around the Sun as seen from the 2002 Riverside Telescope Makers
Conference, Big Bear, California. May 2002
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Halo around the Moon with moondogs on left and right as seen from
the 2002 Riverside Telescope Makers Conference, Big Bear, California.
May 2002
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Jupiter and Venus below Castor and Pollux as seen from the 2002
Riverside Telescope Makers Conference, Big Bear, California. May
2002
