Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Aurora Borealis... Kinda... Maybe... And a Meteor Shower!

Today I learned that Pennsylvania had good viewing conditions for the northern lights. Apparently the solar storm was strong enough that it sent the lights this far south. So I spread the word, and the night just happened to coincide with stitch-n-bitch with friends and a minor meteor shower.

So, after pizza and wine, we discovered when the best viewing conditions were and piled into two cars to sneak into a nearby state park. Yup, I was a bad girl. Look at me, sneaking into a state park after hours to view cosmic events. So bad.

My friends lead us to a field where they'd watched fireworks before, and where the patrolling park rangers might be a little lenient. We crossed a road into a field and looked north, past the bright highway and toward a radio tower. The sky beyond, along the horizon, held a glow that was very similar to that of New Castle, which was much bigger to the west of our position. But that glow was so intense that it created a dome over the area, whereas this glow to the north was subdued and faded closer to the top, and it wasn't nearly as big. We kept saying that it might have had a green hue, and it might have been undulating, but really... we might have also been trying too hard. I'd seen pictures from Iowa, and those were definite, vivid green glows with some pink on the edges. This was just... a glow, a haze. A suggestion of light that could just as easily have been Slippery Rock's light pollution.

So instead, we tilted our heads back and watched the meteor shower. There were a handful of really bright, long ones. Ones that made us go, "Ooh! Over there!" and "Oh! There's one!" One even left a trail. And another faded only to appear again closer to the horizon. And where we were, it was so dark that we could actually discern the Milky Way. After a while, we walked back to the cars, where the highway's light pollution from cars wasn't nearly as bright, and the north was shielded by nearby trees. We leaned against cars and turned in slow circles in one spot, trying to look in all directions, willing something to appear in our peripheral visions to catch our attentions, so we could inform everyone early enough. Or maybe turn around and there, in the opposite direction, would be a bright one. Apparently we were only supposed to see 5-10 an hour, and we exhausted that count early.

But it was so fun just standing there, in the dark, staring at stars and the galaxy and meteorites with loved ones around me. And if the slight glow to the north was, in fact, the borealis, then the feeling that we saw it with significant others and best friends is just... fulfilling. Happy. I felt alive, even while waiting for something to happen. As if I were actually living my life instead of going through motions. And we never got caught. A car went past slowly, once, with a spot light searching the opposite side of the road, but it was down on a parallel road and nowhere near us, and no one stopped to ask us what we were doing. By the time cars went directly past us, we were leaning against our own cars and looking up.

I've never seen a meteor shower. I've never been able to. The conditions have always been overcast or I've had to work during it or early the next morning. But tonight, everything came together nicely. It might not have been one of those grand showers, but it was something to remember.

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