Stargazing 2025-03-24 Fairbanks, AK, USA: Wide Field, Aurora (publ. 2025-03-26)

On Monday morning we had clear skies, and I had about 30 minutes to spare before needing to get ready for work. The temperature was +20 deg F. I decided to start with naked eye stargazing, thinking I could go back in and get the binoculars if there was a target I wanted to focus on. Something new for me is that I have started carrying around a small notebook and pen, so that I can easily make quick astronomical, botanical, or other observations as desired. Here are the scribbled notes from the stargazing session, in their unvarnished form:

notebook pages

If I'm going to continue uploading these, I'm going to have to be more careful with my handwriting. Normally my handwriting is not that bad, but I was writing very quickly and my hands were cold.

A few highlights:

There was a dim green aurora throughout the sky. Most exciting, however, was an aurora shape I had never seen before. A small, but bright, u-shaped blob of aurora partially surrounded one of the stars of Cassiopeia. I made a rough sketch of this on page 1 of the notebook. The blob remained there throughout my stargazing session, though it dimmed somewhat after a few minutes. I'm curious what the cause is. Perhaps a small half-ring of Aurora near the N magnetic pole?

I have not been out stargazing much for the last month or two, and usually not in the morning, so the sky looked unfamiliar to me. Here are some targets I noted and later identified:

- Arcturus in Boötes (pg. 2), to the south. I was pleased to confirm, per Stellarium, that this star does have a yellow tint to it, as I observed in my notebook.

- Leo to the SSW (pg. 3)

- Mars and Gemini, to the NW, just above the trees (pg. 3)

- Altair in Aquila, to the E, also low on the horizon (pg. 4)

- The little dipper next to Draco, near my zenith (pg. 4)

Also, the big dipper really stood out in east (pg. 2). I am used to seeing it toward the N, mostly hidden by trees.

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