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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Anybody who has had their eyes on the skies lately has been privy to some extra-special light shows, with the most aurora activity happening Thursday evening.

An image of Thursday evening's Northern Lights as captured by AuroraMAX. A crowd of people came out to the Dettah Ice Road that night, where light conditions for viewing the lights are superb. - photo courtesy of Astronomy North/AuroraMAX

The amazing Northern lights lately are all due to coronal mass ejections - commonly known as the solar wind - from a sunspot big enough to swallow seven Earths. When the solar wind interacts with the Earth's atmosphere, we get the Northern lights.

Trevor Thompson, 26, was out on the Dettah Ice Road with some friends taking pictures of the lights, and says he's never seen anything like it.

"I was out there 11 or 11:30 p.m., sometime around there, and it was absolutely spectacular," said Thompson. "I've been in Yellowknife for eight-and-a-half years now and I have never seen the Northern lights like that."

Thompson and his friends were not alone on the lake. He said many people were out to see the lights.

"There had to have been 150 cars just that I passed to get to a nice spot towards the middle," Thompson said.

"There was a lot of greens and blues and a little bit of red. I thought that was fantastic. I have hardly ever seen any reds," said Thompson. "They were streaming across the sky from the North into Yellowknife, and it wasn't just in Yellowknife, they were all across the sky. I thought it was very exiting, I get a thrill out of seeing the Northern Lights all the time. It's the one thing that I've found in the North that doesn't cease to amaze me."

Thompson said he is looking forward to the next light show, and will be out there again to view them when he is not working up at the Ekati Diamond Mine.

"I think we're very, very fortunate to have such an opportunity that's right outside our back door," he said.

Another resident who is looking forward to another show is James Pugsley, who heads up Astronomy North.

"Yellowknifers on Thursday night got an excellent show with plenty of reds, yellows, greens, an intense surge of activity local time," said Pugsley. "So we got the big show with two main events being just around 7:30 p.m. Thursday night followed by another major even around 11:30 p.m., and these are called sub-storms."

He said we can expect more stunning light shows as the sun approaches its solar maximum in May 2013.

"This was definitely a sign of things to come as we approach solar maximum," he said.

Had the weather conditions over Yellowknife been clearer over the weekend, people may have seen some even better lights, as even bigger blasts of solar wind hit the Earth on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

"That was an exciting thing to see how many Yellowknifers were coming out to enjoy the lights and not only that, but they were rewarded with a great show," said Pugsley.

Pugsley said he is also impressed by the interest in Aurora Max, an online Yellowknife observatory organized by Astronomy North in co-operation with the Canadian Space Agency, the City of Yellowknife and the University of Calgary that monitors the Northern lights and solar activity. As of Monday, the aurora alert system on the website had 3,600 followers.

To view AuroraMAX, visit the Astronomy North website.

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