This is my May 2024 Aurora Borealis post

I missed the recent sun storm and subsequent aurora. I feel kind of put out by it but I only have myself to blame.

If you weren’t on the internet for the past 72 hours, the scientists who track such things reported that our sun was in the process of generating a lot of whatever kind of energy it gives off that interact with our planet’s magnetic fields and create colorful wisps of color in our skies at night.

As you can tell I’m extremely comfortable with deep research, and technical jargon. You’re welcome!

By all reports, my home town of the Portland of Oregon was a potential location to view these northern lights Friday night. As it happens, on Friday night I was home and just playing Fallout 3 like I have been lately, so around 10:30p or so I went outside (dad was asleep by then or I would have asked him if he wanted to join me), walked out to the apartment parking lot under the parking lot lights which were on the north side of the parking lot, and looked up. Nothing. Just got my vision washed out with that orangeish halogen light. No aurora for me.

I figured it was a dud. When I woke up the next morning, my social media feeds were filled with pictures people all across the continent had taken of the amazing colorful ribbons of color in the sky. Even people in the Portland of Oregon. Dammit. I’d missed out.

The scientists who predict and track such things said that Saturday night might also be good aurora viewing for people all across the continent, even the Portland of Oregon, so I decided I’d walk out further than my parking lot. I might even get in my car and drive somewhere dark, or somewhere north, like across the river in the Vancouver of Washington. I asked dad, who’s been feeling sick with a cough, if he’d like to go, too, and he said yes.

Fast forward to about 7 PM and my nephew texts me to say he and his friend might be hopping on to play some multiplayer computer games and invited me to join, around 9 PM. I said yes but mentioned the aurora viewing in passing. Well I ended up playing Lethal Company with Max and Luke until after 11 PM, at which point I went downstairs and snuck outside (dad was fast asleep) and wandered around my neighborhood looking for dark places, which honestly felt a little creepy, but it was a warm summer night so there were others out and about, too.

Found a park nearby where I could prop my phone camera against a pole to stabilize it (I hadn’t brought a tripod or anything) and snapped a couple of nearly not-fuzzy pictures of the sky, as unwashed out by nearby lights as I could. The pictures turned out fuzzy and disappointing, but at least I got a nice walk out of it.

When I woke up Sunday morning I discovered that the peak activity for whatever solar radiation the sun emits that interacts with our magnetosphere that causes the northern lights was after midnight, which is when I was in bed, but even then it wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the previous night. I felt both vindicated and disappointed, which is how a lot of my life is going lately.

Not even going to try tonight which means it’s probably going to be the most amazing aurora of the past and future century. You’re welcome!