More aurora pictures and the sunpot responsible

 A picture of the sun this morning shows the sunspot responsible for the flare that caused the massive auroral display on Tuesday.  The sunspot is the large one in the upper right quadrant.  It is about to rotate out of sight.

13 Nov, false-color image.  AT80EDT refractor + Lunt solar wedge.

 The auroral display Tuesday night got progressively better over the course of several hours.  At first it manifested as a bright greenish glow on the northern horizon, almost like a false dawn, with barely perceptible red glow filling the northern sky.  Eventually, the green glow transformed into green curtain auroras and the larger red glow was visible to the eye.  For a while, the Bristol Head ridgeline to the west was silhouetted in front of a bright red glow.

 

The beginning.  Sony A7iii + Laowa 15mm f/2.

An hour+ later.

Wednesday night was cloudy here in Creede, so there was no follow up to this great display.  The sky looks normal tonight, with some airglow at low elevations along the horizon. The measured sky brightness varied from 20.92 to 21.05 mpsas, depending on direction.

Western view.  Olympus E-M1iii + Leica 9mm f/1.7 + sparkle filter.

 

Eastern view.

Tuesday auroral display: wow!

 A severe geomagnetic storm produced an auroral display Tuesday evening (11 Nov) that was visible even in some southern states.  From here in Creede it was an impressive show.  The red glow was only occasionally visible to the eye, but it lit up the camera display.  Camera sensors are much more sensitive to red than the human eye.  The green curtains, however, were very easy to see and very exciting.  I haven't seen a display like this since I was a kid in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Lots of pictures were obtained in two sessions, but these three were typical of the best part of the display.  Camera: Sony A7iii + Laowa 15mm f/2 lens + Hoya Sparkle-6 filter.

 

East

North

West

Scraps from last night

 Last night I was able to get in only one shot of Comet Lemmon with the AT80EDT refractor before it set behind the Bristol Head ridgeline.  A second shot showed only the tail:

Tail of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon).  AT80EDT refractor.

The comet is past peak brightness, but without the moon it still shows a nice tail in photographs.

After the comet sank out of sight I turned the telescope to the open star cluster M23 in Sagittarius:

M23

 M23 is just one cluster among many in this densely populated section of the Milky Way.  Here is a finder chart for context:

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

 After the star cluster, the dwarf-planet Pluto was a good target:

Pluto (circled) on 08 Nov.

Here is an image from 16 Oct with about the same FOV, taken with a 135mm f/2 lens:

Pluto (circled) on 16 Oct.

Comparison of the two images reveals how much Pluto has moved with respect to the background stars over three weeks.  Pluto is currently about magnitude 14.6 in the constellation Capricornus.

Goodbye moon, hello comet

Moonset behind Bristol Head on Friday morning (07 Nov)

 Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is now setting behind the Bristol Head ridgeline just as astronomical dusk begins (about 6:30 pm MST).  Moonrise on Saturday night (08 Nov) was about 80 min later.  There was just a brief window of time to catch the comet in darkness before it sank out of sight.

The last vestige of twilight.  Rokinon 135mm f/2 lens.

About to disappear.  AT80EDT f/6 refractor.

Comet Lemmon has passed peak brightness and is now about magnitude 4.8.  The tail is still impressive photographically.
 

November Full Moon. And the comet.

 The full moon of November is traditionally (Northern Hemisphere) known as the "Beaver Moon".  This year it is also hyped as a so-called "supermoon".  Whatever.  The moment of fullest moon was 6:19 am MST on 05 Nov.

A recent beaver dam.

 

Beaver Moon rising

 

 

AT80EDT f/6 refractor.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is still visible in spite of the bright full-moon sky.

C/2025 A6 (Lemmon).  Rokinon 135mm f/2.

 

The next morning (06 Nov) the waning Beaver Moon was setting behind Bristol Head:

 

Winter constellation preview

 The air was calm and the temperature was about 31° F at 4:30 am MST on 02 Nov.  The 11.1-d gibbous moon had already set about an hour and a half earlier.  There was very strong green airglow above the southern horizon.

The next three images were obtained with an Olympus E-M1iii camera and a Leica 9mm f/1.7 lens with a Hoya Sparkle-6 filter.

 

The bright star near the top of the last two images is the planet Jupiter, currently the brightest "star" in the night sky at magnitude −2.3.

 The previous evening (01 Nov), Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) was showing no sign of the intense solar storm that hit it on Halloween evening, 31 Oct.  The tail was once again smooth.

01 Nov.  Meade 80mm f/5 refractor.

about to disappear behind the mountain.

The next nearest star. The comet puts on a show.

"Alpha Centauri" is the mostly-correct answer to the question "What is the nearest star?".  Alpha Centauri is actually a three-star system, comprising two sun-like stars in a solar-system-size orbit, and a third dim and distant red-dwarf companion.  This third star, Proxima Centauri, is slightly closer to us (4.22 ly) than its two larger siblings.  So, after the Alpha-Centauri system, what is the next nearest star?  The answer is Barnard's Star in the constellation Ophiuchus.  Barnard's Star is a red dwarf just under 6 ly distant and shines at magnitude 9.5, meaning it can't be see without a telescope.

The red dot in the center is Barnard's Star, the next nearest star after the Alpha Centauri system.

 The images in tonight's (31 Oct) session were obtained with a Meade 80mm f/5 achromatic (doublet) refractor and an Olympus E-M1iii camera.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) was putting on quite a show, but I didn't realize it until I processed the images afterward.  The comet was apparently hit by an intense burst of solar wind, which warped and knotted the ion tail.  I was watching the comet with a Celestron C5 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, but none of this drama was visible to the eye.

 

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon), 7:38 pm MDT.

About to disappear, 29 min later.  8:07 pm MDT.

 

Here is an animation tracking on the head of the comet, covering the 29-min span:

 Based on a reported distance of 116.8 million km, the change in angular separation of that knot in the tail from the comet's head works out to about 86 km/s relative velocity.