New England Lights

This is certainly not the most magnificent photo ever taken of the aurora borealis. The magnificent thing about it is where this happened. For some reason, on this particular October night, some aggressively saucy solar flares hit the atmosphere somewhere between latitude 42° and 43° just right to light up the night sky over Massachusetts. This is an extremely rare sight here, roughly halfway between the North Pole and the equator.

While I was out this night, looking up to see the sky glowing in colors that it normally doesn’t and snapping some photos, I didn’t actually see this particular view. That credit goes to my daughter, who snapped this photo with her phone while hanging out with friends. It was the winner of the night.