The Slim Buttes area was getting pretty crowded with the opening of archery deer season and the Labor Day weekend. I decided to move back to Pierre for a while. Last night, I was about to go to sleep but decided to check Spaceweather.com one more time to see what the aurora was doing. There was a geomagnetic storm in progress, so I loaded what equipment I needed and drove north of town. Rural Hughes county is not as dark as Harding County but it is pretty good. The only problem was the moon, it is about half phase now and was still above the horizon. By midnight it was sinking below the horizon and conditions improved a lot. This was far from the best displays of aurora borealis I’ve seen, but it has been at least a decade since I’ve seen one this good!
This was my first stop, just before the moon set. At this point, I could see pillars and rays of the aurora with my unaided eyes. It stayed low on the horizon. After the moon set, I drove a few miles further east to get away from the lights of the Pierre area. There, I watched aurora come and go for a couple of hours. It never got much brighter but it was still worth staying out there! Another view. Tonight could be even better if the forecasters are correct. Just before I left, around 1:30 AM. While I was the Slim Buttes, I spent three nights working on this with the C8. The Ghost Nebula, a very faint dark nebula near Cepheus. I knew it was going to be hard with the C8, this one requires a lot of exposure and I need more, but here it is anyway. About 6 hours of exposure.
