I captured the above panoramas of the aurora early in the night, when we also were treated to a late season display of noctilucent clouds low in the north. This was the latest I had seen NLCs from my latitude of 51° N. This is a telephoto lens panorama of a low and late-season display of noctilucent clouds in the north on August 7, 2022. However, at Kp5, the amount of energy being pumped into the magnetosphere and atmosphere around Earth is high enough to trigger (through mechanisms only beginning to be understood) some of the unique phenomena that occur south of the main aurora. So with Kp5, the aurora always appeared in my sky this night to the north, though certainly in a fine display, as I show above. The panorama takes in the northern stars, from the Big Dipper and Ursa Major at left, to the W of Cassiopeia at top right of centre, with Perseus below Cassiopeia, and Andromeda and Pegasus at right. An arc of a Kp-5 aurora over a wheatfield from home in southern Alberta. However, on August 7, the Kp Index was predicted to reach Kp5, on the Kp 0 to 9 scale, so moderately active, but not so active it would bring the aurora right over me at latitude 51° N, and certainly not down over the northern U.S., which normally requires Kp6 or higher levels. The main auroral band typically lies over Northern Canada, at latitudes 58° to 66°, though it can move south when auroral activity increases. Where I live in southern Alberta we are well positioned to see a variety of so-called “sub-auroral” phenomena - effects in the upper atmosphere associated with auroras but that appear south of the main auroral arc, thus the term “sub-auroral.” An arc of a Kp-5 aurora early in the evening just starting a show, but with a fading display of noctilucent clouds low in the north as well. On Augwe were treated to a fine aurora and a superb showing of the anomalous STEVE arc across the sky.
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