3 ms·

As someone who grew up in Montana and North Dakota and has been an amateur astronomer from my early teens, I think you're being overly dismissive. Sure, sometim

As someone who grew up in Montana and North Dakota and has been an amateur astronomer from my early teens, I think you're being overly dismissive. Sure, sometimes and they're more of a faint white glow (which is pretty impressive just by itself), but in over two decades of semi-dedicated skywatching (before moving further south), I saw, with nothing but naked eyes, bright green curtains on multiple occasions, dazzling blue-white pillars all the way up to the zenith once, and red curtains twice. And that's living between 46 and 48 degrees of longitude where they're not that common. If you're setting out on a trip to specifically view the aurora borealis, you'd want to make sure you're viewing from an area with very low light pollution, make sure you stay dark adapted, and schedule your trip around solar max. Under those circumstances, and given multiple clear nights, I would expect the odds would be excellent for seeing some quite breathtaking auroras.

gricardo99 8y ago
Yup. Spent my childhood at 53 degrees longitude, and although you didn’t see much most of the time there were nights I went out to quickly walk the dog in the freezing cold and ended up staring up at the sky for an hour. I’ll never forget, quite a show.
8ytecoder 8y ago
I think you mean latitude. (A lot of valuable information in your post and don't want this to be a distraction.)
Jacqued 8y ago
It's amazing that you can see them so far south in the US. I live at +48° latitude too and around here it's completely unheard of to see anything of the Northern lights (even when I used to live in the countryside at ~+50°). Thanks for the advice.
- BenjiWiebe 8y ago
  In central Kansas, I have seen faint aurora several times in the last 10 years. Nothing bright or fast moving, but if you paid attention and looked they were definitely aurora. And my Canadian mother also confirmed it.

gricardo99 8y ago

Yup. Spent my childhood at 53 degrees longitude, and although you didn’t see much most of the time there were nights I went out to quickly walk the dog in the freezing cold and ended up staring up at the sky for an hour. I’ll never forget, quite a show.

8ytecoder 8y ago

I think you mean latitude. (A lot of valuable information in your post and don't want this to be a distraction.)

Jacqued 8y ago

It's amazing that you can see them so far south in the US. I live at +48° latitude too and around here it's completely unheard of to see anything of the Northern lights (even when I used to live in the countryside at ~+50°). Thanks for the advice.

BenjiWiebe 8y ago
In central Kansas, I have seen faint aurora several times in the last 10 years. Nothing bright or fast moving, but if you paid attention and looked they were definitely aurora. And my Canadian mother also confirmed it.