October 2003
Aurora Gallery
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Summary: It's northern autumn and that means it's aurora season. The auroras on this page were triggered by a coronal mass ejection hitting Earth on Oct. 30th. The CME was hurled into space by one of the most powerful solar explosions in years--an X11-class flare from giant sunspot 486. See also the September 2003 aurora gallery.

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Unless otherwise stated, all images are copyrighted by the photographers.


  Photographer, Location Images Comments

Hanneke Luijting, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Oct. 31
#1, #2, more

H. Luijting: "For me, it was the first time I saw the Northern Lights, and it was amazing! The sky was red and green, sometimes bright red beams appeared for a short time. The photos are taken on a 400ASA Fuji film using speeds of between 20 and 30 seconds at f4.0 (some at f5.6). I used a 28mm lens."

Thad V'Soske, 19km north of the California-Mexico border, USA
Oct. 31
#1, #2, more

Th. V'Soske: "With all of the devastation that San Diego County has seen this last week it was a relief to witness one red sky that wasn't caused by the largest wildfires in California history. "

Calvin Hall, the Eureka area northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Oct. 29
#1, #2, #3, #4, #5

C. Hall: "The aurora were going from 8 pm until 7 am. Of all the amazing aurora I have been blessed to witness, these were certainly among the best."

Chris Atkins, Farmington, New York, USA
Oct. 31
#1, #2

C. Atkins: "Some of those wonderful digital cameras have a unique "flash-then-expose" feature, which is how I got this shot."

Franck Trophardy, Normandy, France
Oct. 31
#1 

F. Trophardy: "The aurora was red and white . We can saw it from the horizon to the zenith. This picture was taken with a 24 mm lens on a postive film Kodak 400."

Robert B. Slobins, LaOtto, Indiana, USA
Oct. 29
#1, #2

none

Mike Buyers, Clarence, New York, USA
Oct. 31
#1, #2, #3

M. Buyers: "My wife thought I was crazy when I packed up my son and daughter, 7 and 8, and drove 1 mile from our house to a country road away from the lights in the neighborhood two nights in a row. I told her to meet us there and she was quite impressed. My kids took a few pictures to school and have been telling their freinds
about it. "

Ken Stackhouse, Puyallup, Washington , USA
Oct. 29
#1 

Photo details: Sony s85, 4-8 second exposures at f 2.0, iso 400.

Remi Boucher, near Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
Oct. 31
#1, #2

R, Boucher: "It was incredible, the aurora were all around me and over my head." Photo details: Nikon Coolpix 4500, Set at 200 and 400 ISO, between 3 and 15 seconds exposure.

Garth Arsenault, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Oct. 31
#1, #2, #3, #4, more

none

Lucille Petruny and David T. King, Jr. , Auburn, Alabama, USA
Oct. 29
#1, #2

Auroras in Alabama are rare. Auroras bright enough to see against the twilight of the setting sun in Alabama are historic. Lucille Petruny and David King took these pictures from the Auburn University campus, at Jordan-Hare Stadium parking area, looking northwest.

more images: from Peter Barvoets of Troy, New York; from Martin Wagner of Sonnenbühl-Genkingen, Germany; from Robert T. Smith of Stoneville, North Carolina; from René van den Berg of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

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