Have you seen the Aurora Borealis?

 

The Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) have been strong recently.  A couple of times there have been predictions of them in the DC area and I have tried to go see them without luck.  Last Thursday night was a super strong one and I happened to be in Shenandoah National Park. I watched them for a couple of hours and got some great pictures. Some friends of mine posted photos they took in Olney, so they were visible in Montgomery County, but, with all the light pollution we have around here I'm not so sure about Bethesda.

This one is from early in the evening. It started out as a pale green that spread across the sky, the reds came in later.

To my naked eyes, this looked a but like light pollution on high clouds, but a long exposure on the camera really brought out the color.  I highly suggest taking pictures. The night mode on your camera app does a decent job.  I used a full-frame mirrorless camera and all this pictures were 30 second exposures.  Later in the evening, I could see the reds spread across the whole sky and some pale green even without using my camera, it was incredible.

If you have missed them so far don't give up. the Northern Lights are caused by sunspot activity and they go through an eleven year cycle that is peaking over the next few months.  The aurora isn't visible every day, I use a couple of websites to keep track. Space Weather is the first one, usually the top paragraph is telling you the chance of a solar flare (this is what causes the aurora) hitting earth.  Look for G4 or G5 class flares if you want a chance of seeing them around here.  The second site I check is SolarHam, which is for amateur radio, but they have a page with the forecast and pictures that show how far south the aurora should be visible.

 

 

 

 

Taste of Bethesda, Today until 4pm

The 32nd annual Taste of Bethesda is today, Saturday, October 5th. It is going on now and runs until 4pm.  Come and taste food from a large selection of Bethesda restaurants.  Tickets are 5 for $10 and tastes are from 1-4 tickets each (mostly 3 or 4).

Lots of people and lots of good food.  I especially liked the crab cake sliders (2 for 4 tickets). All the way at the end of Norfolk was maman bakery which had mini croissants, chocolate chip cookies (with or without nuts) and chocolate croissants.  They get my vote for best deal there.

I also saw guy with a life-sized Trump cut-out that you could take your picture with.  Smile and give a thumbs up, or frown and give a thumbs down, great fun for everyone.