Northern Lights

I've seen the southern lights a few times, but never the northern lights.
One of the perks of moving north, I told myself, was the good chance to see them.

With the solar cycle just off its peak, I knew it was just a matter of timing. A solar storm hitting the Earth in our dark hours (plenty of them in winter) and clear skies (not many of them in winter) in my part of the world.
We had one dud some months back, a pretty good storm, but totally clouded in up here.

Two nights ago, we hit the required combo.

It was a rippa of a storm, so that part was all good... sort of... The storm happened to hit our part of the world about 2pm, so still too much sunlight to see it.
I was planning to head out after dinner, about 7pm, to find a darker patch of sky.
Before I could eat, Amy, Cole and Lee started yelling at me from the back yard to come outside...

Right above the roof of the house was a really bright pink aurora. Just amazing.
We all stood there for about 5-7 minutes just watching it slowly change shape and height.

It really was that color and about that bright. Very impressive to see the hint of green at the base.

This shot is from the front yard about 10 minutes later.
We came in, had dinner, and headed out to see nothing. The show was over for us here.
All in all, of course, I am happy to see it, but am hopeful for another storm and some of the classic green curtain effect that the northern lights are famous for.