On Oct. 11th, a bright curtain of Northern Lights unfurled along the US-Canadian border. Watching from Glasgow in northern Montana, Ben Fyngyrz took this picture:

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© Ben Fyngyrz
"The lights didn't make it all the way down to my latitude," he says , "but the side-view was interesting because it showed the vertical structure of the auroras." More of Ben's photos show dark clouds and a 19th century prairie house backlit by the auroras--very pretty.

The display was triggered by a "south-pointing IMF." In other words, the interplanetary magnetic field near Earth tilted south, opening a crack in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in and fueled a G1-class geomagnetic storm. The storm is over now, but the lights are still dancing in the gallery.

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