The beat goes on! After a fine northern lights display Tuesday night, we may be in for another. On May 13, an explosion on the Sun sent a small, gift-wrapped package of speedy protons and electrons our way that’s expected to arrive early this evening over North America. NOAA space weather forecasters are predicting a G1 minor geomagnetic storm to be in progress during late twilight across the northern U.S. and Canada.
To hunt for the aurora, find a place with a dark sky to the north and allow your eyes about 10 minutes to adapt to get used to the dark. Twilight can segue right into northern lights because they often look similar. You know it’s an aurora when night has begun, but the glowing northern sky persists. If you’re lucky that glow will brighten and break up into curtain of moving rays. That’s what happened Tuesday night around 10.
Stay up late and you’ll get to see another sometimes visitor — the International Space Station or ISS. Now through mid-June the station will make passes over many locations in the northern hemisphere. It looks like a single, bright firefly gliding across the sky from west to east. At Heavens-Above you’ll find predictions and maps for your city. You can also just type in your zip code at Spaceweather’s Satellite Flyby page to get times.
Here’s when you can see it from Duluth and northern Minnesota:
* Sunday morning starting 3:51, ending 3:55 a.m. across the south and eastern sky.
* Monday from 4:32-38 a.m. straight across the top of the sky. Brilliant pass at magnitude -3.3.
* Tuesday from 3:39-44 a.m. across the south and east
If you’re tempted to get up and see the space station, you’ll be rewarded with a superb view of the Milky Way before dawn. The moon has now moved on, leaving dark skies in its wake. At that hour, our galaxy flows like a river from the top of the sky all the way to the southern horizon. In my youth, when I lived in a suburb of Chicago, I used to get up on spring mornings just to see and explore the Milky Way with my small telescope. At least some city lighting was shut off after midnight, leaving the sky dark enough for a view.