Juliancolton

Oh what could have been (and this wasn't even in the core of the CME as far as I can tell).

That's good advice for most but even though this will hopefully be my first TSE, photography will be a big part of the day for me. I work as a photographer so I'm intimately familiar with my camera gear and can operate it in the dark or under pressure, etc. I plan to have three cameras set up – one mounted to a telescope for close-up views, one with a 300mm telephoto lens for imaging the outer corona, and one with a wide-angle lens to capture the scenery at totality (this one might get axed depending on my viewing site. Hotel parking lot? meh.) With semi-automation and remote shutter releases, it'll be doable. I'm positive that not every shot will be a success... my biggest goal is merely to learn as many lessons as possible so I'm better prepared for future eclipses.

I'll be getting in early on the 20th, so hopefully it won't be too crazy yet.

If the College, AK station is really at K = 9, that's some pretty extreme high-lat storming.

There were a HSS and secondary glancing CME thrown into the mix as well, so maybe a slighter higher chance than normal of favorable conditions persisting all day. Probably a lost cause, though.

The aggregate of modelling from the CME scoreboard has it hitting mid-morning tomorrow local time, which would be pretty abysmal timing but also par for the course the past few years. I'll be checking periodically throughout the night tonight for an early arrival

G2 watch in effect starting Sunday from the full-halo CME last night. This is from the STEREO craft situated out ahead of earth so the amount of plasma headed east is misleading, but still, surprisingly impressive event for such a magnetically simple sunspot region.

Tomorrow night is worth watching with the rapid-fire CIR/CH/CME sequence. Hopefully the timing is right and the streams don't just destructively interfere with each other.

Coronal holes always become bigger and more numerous during the years leading up to solar minimum. Nothing new as far as I can tell.

Things got pretty lively for a time on the Sebec Lake webcam. Probably would have been able to pick up some color on camera down here, but I wasn't feelin' it.

Good stuff. I put together a WV loop earlier, if anybody's interested.

IMF looks nice. Shame about all the clouds.

Was just about to post this. Looks pretty nice as modeled.

Camera sees persistent green glow along the horizon, between breaks in the clouds. Should be a good show if we get a substorm close to moonset.

Some decent pillars from a webcam in central ME currently. I'm pretty sure this isn't related to the Wednesday CME, but it's interesting to see

http://www.sidc.oma.be/products/presto/

Looks pretty lopsided. It'll be par for the course with this solar cycle if we manage to miss a CME from this perfectly-placed sunspot group

That last M3.7 flare was very long-lived... that's the one to watch out for. Full-halo CME seems quite likely when the Lasco imagery updates.

G3 watch posted for November 2 ^

Some CH shenanigans on Tuesday night, perhaps. The CIR shockwave should remain underdeveloped until after passing earth, but it's worth keeping an eye on in any event.

The good (?) news is that there's nothing going on... 750 km/s of ~1 atom/sqcm solar wind seems like a Yellowknife special. The real dedicated aurora chasers (even as far down as RI) reported about 15 minutes of lights just after dark, but now it's back to the high latitudes.

Particle density and the IMF sure got mediocre

This morning's CME is modeled to head mostly south of the ecliptic, but it's still probably worth keeping an eye on the IMF by Sunday.

Sort of off-topic, but I just imaged the ISS transiting the sun and thought it turned out nicely:

I think the only way to really take advantage of the ambient solar wind in the mid-latitudes is for a coronal hole stream to sort of intersect a CIR, though I'm not sure how often that happens in reality. I'm hoping we're not done with real sunspots for the rest of the cycle. That active region a couple weeks ago was huge, but pretty benign magnetically.