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Image Courtesy: Vidur Parkash

Recently Earth was enveloped in a geomagnetic storm (between Aug 03- Aug-05) when a coronal mass ejection eurupted on the sun and got hurled towerds us. The flare set off great displays of Northern lights seen as south as Michigan, North Dakota and Minnesota in the United States.

Me and my college buddies seized the opportunity to drive to the face of Lake Superior at Brockway Mtn in Michigan and we were greeted by spectacular auroral displays that I could even make out from our car window. Brockway mountain is a hill that faces Lake superior and is my favorite dark sky site in the United States. The place does not have any cellular reception and you need to go there with a full tank of gasoline in your car. From the top of the hill you can be sure of no pollution no urban lights and simply spectacular skies.

Although low in intensity, the displays spanned the whole northern horizon, overseeing the lake. This opportunity also allowed us to check out my friend Suryabh’s(who was also accompanying me) new Nikon D3000 SLR camera, with which the photo was taken.

Vidur