Could this be some false alarm???!?!?!

They really are one of those rare phenomena in the sky that is best appreciated by the unaided eye, and when it’s strong and really popping the spectacle far exceeds any photographic or video record. Ask anybody who knows.

I still strongly recommend and urge you to take measures to get north to a suitable high-probability latitude to get a decent view. Find a way to spend a couple of weeks at the latitude of Hudsons Bay sometime this year. If you get under the auroral ring and time it with the weather pattern, you’ll very likely catch one. Make it a fishing trip, or whatever. You’ll have a decent chance of catching a decent display. It is absolutely worth it if you get so much as a half an hour of activity.

I’ve seen lots of things in the sky that have taken my breath away, but the three most awesome sights I’ve experienced, in order of increasing anoxia, were: 3. Comet Hyakutake, with a tail that stretched over 60 degrees across the sky, 2. The Total Solar Eclipse of July 11, 1991 seen from near the centerline north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and 1. ANY OF A FULL DOZEN of truly spectacular aurora displays I’ve been fortunate to have witnessed by shear chance…from WISCONSIN. Those displays came to me, but during that same 2o+year interval I have missed fully three times that many exceptional displays, I am informed by friends in a more favorable northern position, because of weather or just because I was located a mere couple of hundred miles south of where the main action was happening.

Do yourself a favor, especially in case the Sun does another Maunder Minimum gig that would foreclose any chance for getting a display at your latitude: GO NORTH, ASTRONOMER MAN!

BTW: no joy here from this particular CME tonight. Had hopes, but the arrival timing for North America was rotten – the impact happened too early during the day, and by nightfall there was only a diffuse glow on the northern horizon to be discerned.

a plane engine Propler or jet won’t work on the moon or mars due to lack of oxygen.

True for the Moon but not for Mars. Mars is a bit short on atmosphere (lousy discos there) but has enough for a Mars plane to be seriously considered.
http://news.discovery.com/space/ares-mars-airplane-hunt-life.html
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/home/F_StopMars_student.html
Models have been built and tested by dropping from a high-altitude balloon.

edit: it is quite a spectacular one too. wow.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/24/world/europe/solar-flare-nasa/index.html

That’s the sort of reporting you get after a major news network fires their entire science staff.

I was about to complain about the same thing. According to the information on their webpage SOHO was mainly built in Europe and is now operated by NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Centre. That means ESA has done very important stuff for this mission, and should be mentioned here.
As a matter of fact (if I remember this fact correctly ), I think in previous times SOHO was mostly referred to as “ESA’s SOHO”. Somehow I have the impression that I read “NASA’S SOHO” for the first time.

Anyway, it’s cloudy here, too. And waaaay to bright due to lightpollution.

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

Has mental image of a sparrow flying with all its birdly might, overtaking a solar blast.

I don’t know about you, but I really hate sunspot minimum, I can’t show anything I do on sun then.

Is there a rule of thumb how to name multi-stakeholder space missions? I often read “NASA/ESA HST” (both hubble.nasa.gov and hubblesite.org don’t even mention ESA on the start page ), but here you call it NASA’s SOHO (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov shows both agencies’ logos, although the site is hosted by NASA).