It has been a long-standing goal of mine to see the Northern Lights, and now I have seen them! I had been monitoring websites that predict the probability of seeing them (www.softservenews.com), and our location in Tobo is far enough north to make it possible. We had been out several nights to try to see them, without success. But there was a big geomagnetic activity storm the night of March 17, 2015 and we were successful. It took two tries. We were out around 10 PM and climbed the scaffolding on the mansion, but saw nothing.

But later, after I was in bed, Christina knocked on my door and said to come look.  In pyjamas and slippers and a coat I went out and they were incredible, covering the entire sky including overhead, and shimmering and moving and glowing. I wasn’t able to walk away from the lamps around the building, but the Northern Lights were bright enough to be visible anyway. It was really lovely to see them with Christina, and share the excitement with other friends as they returned from viewing them later that night. Here are a few photos that do not do them justice:

This was the forecast the night of the light-storm. The red areas are the highest probability of visible Northern Lights.