Auroras in flight
 

A nice aurora photo was taken last night from on board a UA SFO-LON flight (from http://spaceweather.com):

On July 11th, Doc Searls was taking a redeye flight from San Francisco to London when a solar wind stream hit Earth. High over northern Minnesota, he says, "I looked out the window and got the treat that I seek every day in SpaceWeather but tend to miss because I live in Santa Barbara." In short, the aurora borealis:

"The auroras seemed to be only yards away. I got out my Canon 30D and shot away, making liberal use of the dark blanket supplied by United Airlines. The plane, for what it's worth, was a Boeing 777 and my seat was 14a near the front of the wing."

Another solar wind stream is due July 14th. Air travelers, take your cameras and remember this: Seat 14a.

Has anyone here ever seen an aurora from their flight? How common a sight is this?

Funny, that doesn't look like a dark-wizard catcher.

Mike

Always amazing to see in real life OR photos.

I've seen quite a few of them, primarily on non-summer SFO/Europe eastbounds. One of the best was SFO/CDG. I was traveling with mom, who was wowed, at which point I informed her that the people flying back in the Y cabin didn't get to see the aurora :D

Hahaha... did you turn your nose up a bit when you said that? :rolleyes:

Poor guy has to live in Santa Barbara...when he could live in northern MN and watch the sky 24/7. :D

14A is a crappy seat...it's missing a window! :D

Not sure I would trade Santa Barbara for Northern MN... even with the night sky.

I took this photo on a ANC-PHX flight this March - you're almost guaranteed to get good views of the aurora on those flights... ;)

http://www.biatphotography.com/ft/mi...H6409_crop.jpg

For those that haven't tried it, it's actually quite difficult to get good photos out an airplane window as it requires perfectly straight and level flying (no turbulence), holding the camera perfectly still, a long exposure (usually five-thirty seconds), a blacked-out background, and of course the aurora have to be visible in the first place... :p

For grins, I've taken long exposure photos on most of my trans-Atlantic flights and find that I can almost always see the bright green band characteristic of the auroras, even if I can't see them just by looking out the window.

If you hope to see them, it's always best to have a window seat on the north-facing side of the aircraft (typically the left side US-Europe and the right side going to Alaska, left side coming back from Alaska).

Ive been fortunate enough to see it several times. The first was during a period of solar maximum that was about 8-10 years ago. This was a periodic time of heightened activity that causes the aurora. It was on a UA flight from NRT-JFK. I was on the upper deck of a 747, it was pre September 11 and the cockpit door was open. We were on a fairly far north course for that direction and were north of Fairbanks not too far south of the north slope. The FA came through and was waking people up so that they could see it. It was breathtaking. We appeared to be right under it, and you could see it out the windows on either side of the aircraft. Looking into the cockpit it completely lit up the sky in front of us.

I saw it one other time on that route, or the reverse but it wasnt as spectacular, although very nice. I also saw in once in the fall of that year on a night flight EWR-MUN I think it was. Several other times during that solar max period from the upper northwest but they werent as bright as the first one or the EWR-MUN one (from near Iceland).

I KNOW I wouldn't. :D

Although I fly transatlantic a lot, I have only seen the aurora once, on a long-ago PanAm flight LAX-FRA. Agree it was absolutely spectacular but, in contrast to GadgetFreak's flight, our FA seemed to find it ho-hum.

Maybe we don't see more of them in flight because the FAs are so strict about closing the windowshades on eastbound redeyes; they used to be more casual about it, but in those days I was also pretty much consigned to coach with its laissez-faire windowshade policies.

Here are mine on CO99 EWR-HKG last fall, 5 photos starting with this one, and an Airshow picture indicating where I took it:

http://rkkwan.zenfolio.com/p476976649/?photo=263245475

In maybe 15 or so East-coast US to Europe flights, I've only seen it once. But I always select an A seat on the night flight over, and make a special request of the FA to wake me if it's observed.

I thought the thread was about someone seeing the Aurora spy plane in flight (which, I think, is different from the Blackstar secret plane).

Hey, whose that breaking down the door....they're wearing black uniforms and ski masks....hey, it says ........Take him away.....no, noooo. noooooooooooooooooooooooooo

i saw it once
 

I was on a flight from MSP to BOS. Tthe pilot came on the PA and pointed out the Aurora on the left side of the plane. it was beautiful.