So, the connection to the Sierra is weak on this one - basically my love for the stars comes from sleeping out in the Sierra (but hey, that's why we're in Beyond the Sierra Nevada right). I've been getting rather into stargazing lately and my mother was happy to go out for Mother's Day weekend. We planned the trip about a week ago to go to Clearlake CA a few days ago on Friday, May 10th and do some observing.
Much to my surprise, we hear news that a large solar coronal mass ejection was headed for earth and could cause northern lights to have effects as far south as California. I didn't get my hopes up, but hey we were there observing anyway so of course we're going to take a look. We didn't see anything strange aside from some star clusters and another Starlink line of satellites for most of the evening. But then around 11:00 PM my brother said "hey, what are those faint streaks over there" and low-and-behold, a very red version of the northern lights was visible.
The spectacle varied drastically throughout the next hour and a half from faint reddish lines, to a red haze, to white lines, and at one point just a white patch that didn't even go down to the horizon. My best description of it that it looked like someone in the next town over was pointing spotlights upwards, but they slowly varied the beams colors, intensities, and locations.
When we tried taking photos with my phone, it was even more wild because the colors came through way differently on camera than they did in person! We only saw faint reds like the first photo and some whites with our eyes, but as you can see it came out wildly different in the other photographs! The photographs resolved the phenomenon clearer and brighter than our eyes could - including some green and blue colors that were not visible with the naked eye!
The photo that most matches my experience:
More moments in the space light show (the camera picks up way more color than the human eye):
And lastly, a set of streaks near Cassiopeia that appeared more white-ish to the eye and blue to the camera. These were later on in the show which lasted until around 1:30 AM when it subtly faded away:
I hope you enjoy, and if anyone ends up going stargazing near Clearlake, I'd highly recommend Walker Ridge Road as an observing point. Specifically the little spot where people seem to enjoy shooting some rifles also makes for a great observing site :P Coords: 39.038059, -122.464347
Went stargazing, ended up seeing northern lights in CA
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MitchellK
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Went stargazing, ended up seeing northern lights in CA
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