Photo's of last nights aurora!!!  Finally, some magnetic activity after so much silence!  Someone who was in the right place at the right time was Zoltan Kenwell, who managed to capture some AMAZING images from around midnight to 4:30am.  Starting from Edmonton, and using satellite imagery to determine where the clear skies were, he travelled west to the Drayton Valley region stopping at various places to capture his images, before finally getting home at 5:30am!  That's dedication!

Impressive work - thanks for sharing Zoltan.

It's a quiet time on the sun at the moment.  Normally, the sun goes through periods of activity and quietness, on an 11-year cycle.  At the moment it is quiet.  Very quiet.  The quietest time for 50 years!

This low activity is not good for aurora watchers as it causes a low solar wind speed and ultimately leads to less Aurora being seen.  For more information try this link:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm